The owners of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas could be forced to pay a huge legal bill after being sued by hundreds of victims of the October 1 mass shooting.
Several lawsuits – including one representing 450 people – have already been filed against the hotel and its parent company MGM Resorts International.
Live Nation Entertainment, the concert promoter, is also being sued, as well as the estate of mass murderer Stephen Paddock, the manufacturer of the bump stocks he used to fire rapidly and the Route 91 Harvest festival venue.
Paddock murdered 58 people and injured hundreds more when he used his Mandalay Bay hotel suite as a vantage point to fire on crowds enjoying the country music show.
Paddock murdered 58 people and injured hundreds more when he used his Mandalay Bay (pictured) hotel suite as a vantage point to fire on crowds enjoying the country music show
Live Nation Entertainment, the concert promoter, is also being sued, as well as the estate of mass murderer Stephen Paddock (pictured), the manufacturer of the bump stocks he used to fire rapidly and the Route 91 Harvest festival venue
MGM has said through representatives it won’t litigate shooting lawsuits in the media. In statements, it has blamed the massacre on Paddock.
The argument of the lawsuits against the hotel and MGM is essentially that preventive measures were either not taken, or did not go far enough.
They argue that staff should have been trained better and that the many red flags in the build-up to the shooting – including Paddock bringing in multiple suitcases packed with guns – should have been spotted.
MGM released a statement to Business Insider explaining that the shooting was a ‘terrible tragedy perpetrated by an evil man’.
It went on: ‘These kinds of lawsuits are not unexpected and we intend to defend ourselves against them. That said, out of respect for the victims, we will give our response through the appropriate legal channels.’
Because MGM was determined by the Nevada Supreme Court in October to be potentially liable for a 2010 assault on a couple at one of its hotels, the suits based on the Paddock shooting could be successful.
Pictured: The horror on October 1, which left 58 people dead and hundreds more injured
In the 2010 case, the court ruled that the assault was ‘foreseeable’ because similar instances occurred in the past.
Therefore the suits are likely to hinge on whether the October 1 shooting was ‘foreseeable’.
Legal experts have told Business Insider that attorneys might argue that, given previous shootings in the US, the hotel should have known to look out for them.
‘Foreseeability is one of the key components of liability,’ Dick Hudak, a managing partner of Resort Security Consulting, told the website.