ROCKY MOUNT, Va. (AP) - A judge has upheld a jury's negligence verdict against the state from the 2007 mass killings at Virginia Tech, but has sharply reduced damages awarded to two families.

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According to media reports, Franklin County Circuit Judge William Alexander II on Wednesday reduced the jury's damages awarded to each family to $100,000, the statutory cap on damages against the state. Jurors had awarded each family $4 million.

The lawsuit was filed by the families of two students who were among the 33 left dead on the Blacksburg campus after a rampage by a lone gunman. Attorneys successfully argued the university waited too long before alerting the campus of the first two shootings.

The April 16, 2007, rampage on the Blacksburg campus was the deadliest in modern U.S. history.