The corporate owners of the Mandalay Bay casino filed suit against the victims of last year’s Las Vegas concert mass shooting, according to a report published on Monday. The suit says it has no liability for the massacre. MGM Resorts International went to federal courts in Nevada and California and took on more than 1,000 shooting victims, saying claims against the hotel giant “must be dismissed,” reports the New York Post. “Plaintiffs have no liability of any kind to defendants,” the complaints argue, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Las Vegas lawyer Robert Eglet is representing several victims and he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the hotel’s unusual action is a pre-emptive strike to get the cases heard in federal court instead of state court because MGM must believe it has better chances of victory in a federal case. Eglet said the MGM lawsuits are 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,” the lawyer said, according to The New York Post. “It’s just really sad that they would stoop to this level.”
On October 1 last year, Mandalay Bay guest Stephen Paddock shot out the windows of his 32nd-floor room and opened fire on fans below attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival. He killed 58 people and wounded more than 800. He had killed himself by the time cops stormed his room. Lawsuits have been filed against both MGM and concert promoter Live Nation, accusing the companies of not having adequate security or properly trained staff, reports the New York Post.
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