MGM Resorts sues 1,000 victims of Vegas shooting, seeking to avoid liability

Faced with potential lawsuits from hundreds of victims of last year’s mass shooting in Las Vegas, MGM Resorts International is trying an untested strategy: Suing the victims first.

The company’s aggressive legal approach, which stirred outrage on social media Tuesday, turns on an interpretation of federal law that has apparently never before been used to try to shield a company from liability.

MGM is not suing for money, but the company wants a federal court to rule it cannot be held liable for the shooting by more than 1,000 victims and others it named in the suits.

MGM owns the Mandalay Bay hotel, where, on Oct. 1, 2017, from a room on the 32nd floor, Stephen Paddock shot and killed 58 people and wounded more than 500 others attending a country music concert below. It was the worst mass shooting in modern American history.

Some victims have already sought damages from MGM for what they call a failure to provide adequate security and for allowing Paddock to bring high-powered rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition into his hotel room.

More victims are expected to do the same.

MGM’s legal maneuver is based on a federal law passed after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, which is known as the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies, or SAFETY, Act.

The law is intended to shield federally certified manufacturers of security equipment and providers of security services from liability should they fail to prevent a terrorist attack, which the law defines as an unlawful act that causes mass destruction to citizens or institutions of the United States. The Department of Homeland Security said in a publication that it has approved hundreds of applications for SAFETY Act protection for products and services including software, sensors and security planning. MGM contends that under the law, which Congress passed in 2002, it is immunized from liability because it met two conditions: A security company the hotel hired for the concert had a certification from the Department of Homeland Security, and the shooting qualified, in the company’s view, as an “act of terrorism.”

However, it is far from clear how successful the company might be in using this law to its advantage. MGM’s own lawyer, Michael Doyen of the firm Munger, Tolles and Olson, says in court filings that “there has apparently never been any litigation” invoking this federal law.