The Michigan Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to hear arguments in the case against Oxford Community Schools and its legal responsibility leading up to a 2021 mass shooting.

The decision means the families of seven students who filed the civil cases have now reached the effective end of their appeal attempts, as a federal judge ruled last week that those cases also cannot proceed.

At issue was whether Oxford schools and its employees have governmental immunity protecting their actions before the shooting at Oxford High School in November 2021 that left four students dead and six others and a teacher injured.

The Supreme Court said Wednesday that it did not feel the case should be reviewed by the court. The families of the victims appealed the Michigan Court of Appeals' September decision that the district and its employees do have governmental immunity, which means they can't be sued in connection with their actions leading up to and during the shooting.

Tim Mullins, an attorney for the district and its employees, said he thought the state Court of Appeals' decision was appropriate and there was no reason for the Supreme Court to review it.

"I don't think the liability extends to those who didn't commit a criminal act," Mullins said. "If you're going to extend the law to make a government employee liable for acts of third parties, the extension of liability would be monumental."

The lawsuits, filed by the families of Tate Myre, Justin Shilling, Aiden Watson and four other students, allege that Oxford schools, along with counselors Pam Fine and Shawn Hopkins, former Dean of Students Nick Ejak, teachers Jacqueline Kubina, Becky Morgan and Allison Karpinski and security guard Kimberly Potts, were negligent in not preventing what the lawsuits said was a foreseeable act by then-15-year-old shooter Ethan Crumbley.

Civil lawsuits were dismissed in March 2023 by Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Mary Ellen Brennan after she ruled that the district and its employees were protected by governmental immunity and the proximate cause of the shooting was Crumbley. The attorneys for the families appealed Brennan's ruling to the Court of Appeals, then to the Supreme Court.

Attorneys Ven Johnson and Chris Desmond have previously argued that Oxford employees were the proximate cause of the shooting, that governmental immunity violates the victims' rights to equal protection under the law, that an Oakland County judge didn't consider all evidence when making her decision and Oxford employees failed to report neglect of abuse of the shooter as required by law.

Johnson's office announced he would hold an afternoon press briefing at which families were expected to respond to the decision.

The federal lawsuits were dismissed last week by U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan Judge Mark Goldsmith after a panel of three judges from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously concluded Hopkins and Ejak did not display callous indifference toward the risk they perceived Crumbley posed prior to the shooting.

The shooter, who met with a school counselor just hours before he opened fire, killed four students on Nov. 30, 2021: Madisyn Balwin, 17, Hana St. Juliana, 14, Tate Myre, 16, and Justin Shilling, 17. He is now serving a life in prison sentence without the chance of parole after pleading guilty to murder, attempted murder and terrorism, though he has filed requests to withdraw his guilty plea and be resentenced.

His parents, James and Jennifer Crumbley, were convicted of four counts of involuntary manslaughter in early 2024, marking the first and second time in the U.S. a parent was convicted of manslaughter for a mass shooting carried out by his or her child. They were both sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison.

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