ORLANDO, Fla. — The lawsuit against the parent company of Spectrum News 13 for the 2023 killing of reporter Dylan Lyons was dismissed — this time, for good — after a federal judge ruled that it again failed to show the TV station was responsible for his death.

Lyons’ family sued Charter Communications — the parent company of Spectrum News 13, an Orlando Sentinel news partner — claiming the station failed to protect Lyons the day he was shot by the suspect in a Pine Hills murder scene he was assigned to cover. The lawsuit cited in part his brief professional career and a lack of safety training and equipment.

But in a 12-page opinion issued late Friday, Senior District Judge Anne Conway, who initially dismissed the family’s first filing in October, said the lawsuit failed to demonstrate Lyons was unaware of the danger posed by the crime scene with the shooter still at large, nor did it claim that his editors hid that fact from him.

“Lyons’s lack of experience is irrelevant to whether the danger was apparent and whether Defendant concealed or misrepresented the danger of the crime scene to Lyons,” Conway wrote in her decision.

The ruling further relied on a “virtual certainty” standard, meaning Charter would have to know Lyons would be hurt or killed based on prior incidents or explicit warnings, which the lawsuit failed to establish.

The complaint filed in federal court in Orlando was dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning Lyons’ attorneys can’t bring it again. A spokesperson for Charter Communications, which denied wrongdoing, declined to comment.

“We saw an injustice and, despite the odds, took this case on knowing the difficult task that was in front of us,” attorney Mark NeJame, whose firm filed the lawsuit on behalf of Lyons’ family, said in a statement. “However, a young man was needlessly killed, a family grieved, and that was a cause worth fighting for.”

It’s been three years since Lyons was fatally shot in his news van while covering the killing of Natacha Augustin, 38, who had been shot hours earlier by the same gunman, then-19-year-old Keith Moses. Moments before Lyons was shot, investigators said, Moses had emerged from a nearby house where he also shot and killed 9-year-old T’Yonna Major.

Moses currently faces trial for the three killings and, if convicted, could face the death penalty. His next hearing is scheduled Sept. 1.

In court on Thursday, Conway was wary of the merits of the complaint against Charter, noting that “any person on the street” would know “a crime scene is dangerous.” Charter’s attorneys further rebutted that neither Lyons nor his supervisors were notified of Moses’ continued presence in the neighborhood.

That is the subject of another lawsuit tied to Lyons’ death, this time against the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and filed alongside T’Yonna’s family as a co-plaintiff. That lawsuit alleges the agency failed to alert the community and local news media of Moses as a suspect in Augustin’s murder, even after he was identified early in the investigation.

Meanwhile, according to the complaint, a deputy at the scene waved off concerns by T’Yonna’s mother, Brandi Major, about law enforcement’s presence in the area. Moses, who remained in the neighborhood after allegedly shooting Augustin, was later accused of breaking into Major’s home and shooting both the child and Major, who survived.

A motion to dismiss that lawsuit is pending. The Sheriff’s Office denies wrongdoing.

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