Over nine months after Stephen Paddock opened fire on a Las Vegas outdoor concert, killing 58 and wounding more than 800, over 1,000 victims of the massacre find themselves named defendants in a series of federal lawsuits. Claiming that they have the “best interest of the victims” in mind, MGM Resorts International seeks to be relieved of all liability for the attack, which was executed from two suites in MGM’s Mandalay Bay resort and casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
The MGM cases, filed Friday, rely heavily on the 2002 federal SAFETY Act, which was designed to combat corporate reluctance to engage in anti-terrorism efforts after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001.
Yes, companies were hesitant to try counter terrorism in their own buildings back then. Really.
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the private sector was extremely reluctant to deploy security technologies and services in civilian settings due to the enormous liability risks involved. Should the company’s technology be impacted by an act of terrorism, the company could be held responsible for any damages. In response, Congress enacted the Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies (SAFETY) Act in 2002.
MGM’s security contractor, Contemporary Services Corp., is certified by the Department of Homeland Security as “protecting against and responding to acts of mass injury and destruction.” Since Contemporary Services Corp. is protected by the SAFETY Act, the casino giant claims that those protections transfer to MGM and protect them from liability. If a judge agrees that the SAFETY Act applies, MGM asks for all liability suits to be dismissed.
MGM spokesperson Debra DeShong released a statement on Monday.
“The Federal Court is an appropriate venue for these cases and provides those affected with the opportunity for a timely resolution. Years of drawn out litigation and hearings are not in the best interest of victims, the community and those still healing.”
Nothing says "get well soon!" like a subpoena, am I right?
Las Vegas attorney Robert Eglet tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal that as a Nevada company dealing with an incident that occurred in Nevada, this case belongs in Nevada courts.
(Eglet) viewed the decision to file the complaints in federal court as a “blatant display of judge shopping” that “quite frankly verges on unethical.”
“I’ve never seen a more outrageous thing, where they sue the victims in an effort to find a judge they like,” he said. “It’s just really sad that they would stoop to this level.”
NPR reports that victims of this tragedy—one that law enforcement still refuses to call an act of domestic terrorism—will face an “uphill battle” as they seek to assign responsibility for Paddock going undetected as he moved a veritable arsenal into his pair of Mandalay Bay suites in the days preceding the massacre. Consider the struggle of the 2012 Aurora, Colorado massacre victims, who attempted to hold the movie theater liable, only to end up being the ones who had to pay:
Victims tried to sue the theater chain, Cinemark. They lost, and were even ordered to pay the company's legal fees. (Law professor Tom) Russell says venues themselves can often be victims too, in the form of lost business and other harm.
“One would have to show that the hotel had knowledge about this of some sort and they disregarded it,' Russell said. 'It would require that level of knowledge.”
"One can't blame the hotel for not predicting that this gunman would go up to their 32nd floor with an arsenal and break out the windows and start firing at people,” Russell says.
The thing is, people DO blame the hotel, and while the MGM lawsuit doesn’t seek financial relief from the victims, the optics of a corporate behemoth suing concertgoers who endured a rain of bullets will only exacerbate that blame.