Posted on 09/02/2016 11:24:46 AM PDT by SMGFan
Four survivors of the 2012 Colorado theater shooting massacre were ordered by a judge Thursday to pay Cinemark nearly $700,000 in legal fees.
The 28 families of those killed and wounded in the July 2012 shooting sued Cinemark, the movie chain that owns the Century 16 where James Holmes opened fire during a showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” claiming that there wasn’t adequate security to stop Holmes from carrying out the attack.
An Arapahoe County civil jury ruled in May that Cinemark wasn’t liable for the shooting that left 12 people dead and 70 others. Lawyers for Cinemark then filed a “bill of costs” for $699,187.13 in June in the country court. The Denver Post noted that under state law, the winning side in a civil case is entitled to recover all of its legal costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The Movie Theater offered them $150K to go away, they Chose to Persist, NOW they get to PAY for Their Actions, we call these CONSEQUENCES!!!
If a moviegoer slipped, fell and broke a hip I suspect they’d be paying out. What is different about allowing an armed madman to shoot up patrons, as far as liability? I don’t think the lawsuit was frivolous.
I agree with you.
Under a 1984 Colorado statute the attorney for a losing party may also be held responsible for the other party’s legal fees if the attorney knowingly asserted a phony claim or defense or otherwise acted inappropriately. Section 13-17-101, et seq., Colorado Revised Statutes (1987 Repl. Vol. 6A).
If one side makes an offer of judgment in time and the other side rejects (ordinarily the plaintiff, as here) then if the plaintiff after trial fails to recover more than the amount offered in judgment, the court can order plaintiff to pay costs but not necessarily attorney fees.
The statute above shows that the court must have determined that the claim lacked merit.
I’m all for reforming the legal system to prevent frivolous torts but this seems extreme and punitive.
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My guess is it will cost them more than $700k in bad publicity.
Those costs were incurred in defending a frivolous lawsuit. Someone will pay; it's entirely appropriate the plaintiffs should write the check.
If everyone there was carrying that night, he still would have killed people but probably would have been eventually taken out. From what I remember reading it was dark and there was a lot of confusion inside.
What would make this even more delicious is if the plaintiffs sue the plaintiff’s attys!
Please, a no firearms policy does not turn into you should expect someone with them to target your establishment. This was a stupid lawsuit to bring, especially when Cinemark offered them a settlement, their own attorneys told them to take it, and the families refused and went to trial and LOST.
You don’t have to like the outcome, but clearly the families involved here made many bad decisions, and are now paying the price for it.
Sorry, I am objecting to $700K in lawyer fees.
A jury decided the case and decided in Cinemark’s favor. It does not look like crap. the plaintiffs sued and lost via a jury’s verdict.
Despite winning Cinemark still offered to pay the plaintiffs and warned that they would seek to recoup their legal fees if the defendants didn’t settle. So some decided not to settle anyway and they are now reaping the results of that decision.
All around this was a rare but excellent example of how things should work.
Kudos to Cinemark, the jury, and the judge.
I feel badly for the families also, HOWEVER money does NOT bring the loved ones back and the theater should NEVER have been required to have armed guards there NO theaters have armed security or didn’t use to anyway!!! The attorneys went after the theater because they were the ones with the money if you ask me the DAMNED attorneys should be the ones to pay!!! They assumed the jury would come up with a winning judgement on their feelings of pity towards the plantiffs, GOOD FOR THIS JURY they ruled correctly!!!
I have to agree that I can’t see where Cinemark should be held liable, at least morally. How are you supposed to stop a nut from suddenly appearing and doing that? It is not a reasonably foreseeable event.
The plaintiff’s lawyers should pay the costs.
The flaw in that argument is that the theatre did not require anyone to go there. When a business promotes its “gun free” policy, patrons are warned that self-defense is not allowed there. They have the choice to waste their $20 elsewhere.
Losing a suit doesn’t mean being wrong. Suits are never a statement of right or wrong.
Cinemark obviously failed to provide adequate security since a gunman did enter and shoot up the place.
For $700k, I expect an appeal.
In either case, the plaintiff would have to prove primary or contributory negligence on the part of the theater. A slip-and-fall might be fairly easy; spilled substances are not unusual in a movie theater so the owners assume liability for cleaning them up, as well as providing adequate lighting, handrails, non-slip surfaces, etc.. All on behalf of due diligence and “reasonable and prudent” precaution.
An armed madman coming into a movie theater spraying gunfire is a much more unusual event, one that no reasonable person would anticipate. Therefore, the theater’s liability is considerably more narrow, if it exists at all.
One could almost defend the theater on “act of God” grounds (although this nutcase was hardly a divine agent).
“If a moviegoer slipped, fell and broke a hip I suspect they’d be paying out. What is different about allowing an armed madman to shoot up patrons, as far as liability? I don’t think the lawsuit was frivolous.”
Slipping and falling is relatively common. Murderous psychos are not.
Reducing chance of slip and falls with adequate lighting, smooth paving, bannisters, is all reasonable and doable. Somehow keeping a nutjob away from a public business is not.
As for the no firearms rule, I agree it is bad on Cinemark’s part, but, it’s their property and they can say no firearms, no water, no high heeled shoes. . . patrons can choose to go elsewhere. I wouldn’t hold them liable for that.
That is the amount Cinemark spent defending itself. Sounds cheap to me based on the outcome. They were threatened with untold $millions in possible damages and punitive awards. Their legal team was not cheap but they were up to the task.
The fact that they had to defend themselves from a frivolous lawsuit is ridiculous though.
Maybe. Maybe not.
I'm sure the plaintiffs' lawyers expected to get paid. The lawyers no doubt sued for an enormous amount expecting to get nearly half for themselves. If that amount was, let's say, two million dollars of a five million dollar judgement, then what is unreasonable about awarding a mere $700K to the prevailing defendant?
Keep in mind that the defendants were compelled to consider whether it would be in their interests to settle the lawsuit for who knows how much money rather than fight against victims of a heinous crime. Your sympathy for these victims shows just how risky the situation was for the theater owners.
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