Las Vegas Shooting Victim Files Lawsuit Against Mandalay Bay
Another victim of the Las Vegas shooting has filed a lawsuit in the wake of the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. 21-year-old survivor Paige Gasper has filed suit against Mandalay Bay, the hotel where the shooter conducted his deadly rampage.
Gasper was shot in the chest during the shooting rampage that took place on Oct. 1 during the closing night of the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas. Sixty-four-year-old shooter Stephen Paddock fired down into the crowd from his 32nd-floor room at Mandalay Bay, killing at least 58 people and wounding nearly 500 more before killing himself. A subsequent investigation has revealed that Paddock stockpiled weapons and ammunition in his room in the days prior to his rampage.
According to Business Insider, a lawsuit Gasper filed on Monday (Oct. 10) charges Mandalay Bay and its parent company, MGM Resorts International, with being "negligent or grossly negligent" for not noticing or taking adequate precautions against a guest stockpiling guns, alleging that employees at the hotel had not been adequately trained to notice and report suspicious activity.
The Victims of the Las Vegas Shooting
"At all relevant times, Defendants MGM, and/or Mandalay Corp ... knew or should have known that it was reasonably foreseeable that a breach of their duties to keep their premises reasonably safe in the aforementioned manner might result in catastrophic injury perpetrated by a gun-toting guest with an extreme intention to harm others," according to Gasper's filing.
The lawsuit also targets concert promoter Live Nation Entertainment Inc., bump stock manufacturer Slide Fire Solutions LP and Stephen Paddock's estate. Gasper's legal complaint alleges that Live Nation failed to plan an adequate exit strategy and train staff to respond to such an emergency. Slide Fire Solutions is a company that manufactures the bump stock devices that allowed Paddock to fire semi-automatic weapons as if they were fully automatic.
Gasper's complaint states that the bullet that struck her in the chest shattered her ribs and lacerated her liver. She is seeking in excess of $15,000.
Business Insider reports that more lawsuits from the victims are likely, and claims against corporations to take legal responsibility for mass shootings will break new legal ground in the absence of new federal gun regulations.
"If Congress isn't regulating gun ownership, it is going to be private parties ... who end up regulating their own premises," Georgetown law professor Heidi Li Feldman states.
Slide Fire Solutions is the target of a separate lawsuit filed on behalf of three of the victims of the Las Vegas shooting. According to that filing, "This horrific assault did not occur, could not occur, and would not have occurred with a conventional handgun, rifle, or shotgun, of the sort used by law-abiding responsible gun owners for hunting or self-defense."
Photos From the Route 91 Shooting Show Kindness Amidst Chaos
Country Singers Are Praying for Vegas