Unless this is a citywide policy that all theatres must comply with, you might as well just shut your doors then.
The lawyers who are taking these cases are most likely taking them on a contingency basis. That is, IF the client recovers, the attorney will get anywhere from one third to 40 percent, depending on whether there is a trial or not. Attorneys typically don’t take cases where the likelihood if winning is in question. Especially where the client lacks the means to advance the necessary costs (filing fees, discovery costs, etc. ) The attorney advances those funds and will recapture them out of the settlement when it comes. That’s how confident they are of a win.
The attorneys know full well there is an insurance company behind the theater, and that insurance company has more money than Og.
Sometimes people are basically judgment proof, in which case, the attorneys pass on the case. But that didn’t happen here.
The reason I asked was because, earlier in this thread, someone asked you if you thought the government could be held responsible if someone shot up a park, and you said “no”, because a theatre charges people for entry on to the property.
I don’t see what difference charging for admission makes as to the legal duty placed upon a property owner in terms of guest/visitor safety.
Some government owned & operated parks charge admission. Are they now more liable?
What if the theatre was showing the movie for free? (Free admission for active duty military in uniform happens every now and then in San Diego.)
I don’t have the cite at hand, perhaps someone else does, but municipal parks are generally immune to judgments for intentional torts committed therein. IIRC, the theory is that by allowing liability, parks would disappear as municipalities choose to close the parks to avoid liability issues. I don’t remember the extent of the protection provided and It’s too late in the day to go searching for it. Private parks, like Disneyland, would not benefit from such protection, however, it’s pretty much an unwritten rule that suing Disneyland is a waste of time as the juries always take Mickey Mouse’s side. (seriously)
Apropos of nothing, my uncle decided not to sue his employers. He was a chef and was instructed to move a gas oven across the room, but they neglected to switch the gas off while he did so. It exploded, he was flung across the room, ended up unconscious and coalescing for several weeks. Guy in charge said he’d pass the restaurant on to him once he was finished with it. Retired in Florida and sold it to someone completely unrelated. My uncle’s in a much better place now and won the lottery, so yeah.
What kind of monster would prevent teens from screwing with reckless abandon?
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you exhibit A, Morgenstern, a perfect example of the plaintiff tort lawyer style mindset, playing out right here, live, on the SDMB.
First he is asked to, and does, list what is supposed to be a complete list of the things the owner of a theatre should do to make a theatre safe. His list is however (strangely, when you think about it) seemingly aimed only at preventing - with the basis of 20/20 hindsight - the specific atrocity that has just been committed. He’s been badgered to give this list for a couple of days and has plenty of time to think through his answer. Nonetheless he mentions nothing about preventing someone walzing in the front door with a bomb, even though frankly it’s not even that hard to think of this as being the way that someone could commit an atrocity.
Then someone hypothesises said person walzing in the front door with a a bomb going and Morgenstern, without batting an eye just announces an additional thing the owner of the theatre should have done, again only with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the farcical, intellectually dishonest, legal theatre that is the tort system, in microcosm.
Where’s the Like button on that post.