There's just no chance they win this outright. Best case scenario for them (from what I can gather), is a settlement.
They might even see discovery as a win, where they compel the university to turn over all these complaints and other documentation.
I ran this through a few AI models and they all said basically the same thing.
Why this case is extremely hard to win
1.
WSU will argue:
- The murders occurred off-campus
- Victims were not WSU students
- Kohberger acted independently
- No university action could legally be the proximate cause of the killings
This is where many similar cases fail.
A judge will ask:
That’s a very high bar.
2.
To win, plaintiffs must show WSU knew or should have known:
- Kohberger posed a specific, imminent risk of lethal violence
- Not just that he was “creepy,” inappropriate, or unstable
Courts are reluctant to say:
Unless the evidence is
shockingly explicit, this will be hard.
3.
Public universities get:
- Sovereign-immunity protections
- Judicial deference in disciplinary decisions
- Broad discretion under academic freedom doctrines
Judges are cautious about turning universities into
guarantors of third-party safety.