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Survivors of the mass shooting in Las Vegas last October woke to the news Tuesday that the resort where the shooting took place is suing more than 1,000 people who lived through the attack.
Fifty-eight people were killed and hundreds more were wounded in the attack.
MGM, which owns the Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas, chose to sue survivors in an effort to shield itself from potential damages it might have to pay to victims. The company isn’t looking to get money out of the victims, but immunity to prevent paying the victims for their pain and suffering.
The merits of MGM’s argument that it did enough to prevent the shooting may be decided by a court, but MGM is already taking a hit in the court of public opinion.
The company’s argument that its lawsuit is meant to prevent the pain of long, drawn-out litigation fell flat with many for a simple reason: It just doesn’t look very nice to sue people who survived a mass shooting on your property.
Sacramento-area survivor Lisa Fine told ABC10 she was beside herself when she found out about the suit.
“Mandalay Bay is just like, ‘not only did we let [shooter Stephen] Paddock in our hotel to murder people, but now we’re going to sue the people that he tried to murder who survived it.’ That to me is ridiculous. It’s sick,” Fine said.
The shooter opened fire through his hotel window onto a concert crowd below. Security footage showed him entering the hotel with luggage that turned out to contain a massive arsenal of firearms.
Fine now works with a support organization for survivors called Route91 Strong, which is named for the concert series that was attacked on October 1.
She says she’s still trying to learn whether she is one of the survivors being sued by the company, but says many survivors feel re-victimized by the MGM suit, regardless of whether they are named in it.
“Instead of them protecting us more, they’re hurting us more,” Fine said of MGM. “This is an attack.”
Fine says she is not among the group of survivors who’ve already filed lawsuits of their own against MGM.
MGM’s legal tactics aside, civil suits against venues where shootings have occurred can be difficult for victims to win. Survivors of the 2012 Aurora theater shooting found themselves briefly on the hook for $700,000 of legal expenses after losing a lawsuit against the theater’s parent company Cinemark.
They unsuccessfully argued that the theater did not properly secure the theater to prevent the shooting that killed 12 people and injured dozens more.
The theater chain backed away from seeking that money from victims after public backlash.
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