AURORA | A high-profile New York law firm announced Tuesday it had filed a lawsuit on behalf of several people who were inside the Century Aurora 16 theater when a gun man opened fire July 20.
Napoli, Bern, Ripka, Shkolnik, LLP, filed the lawsuit this week accusing the theater’s owner, Cinemark, Inc., of negligence for failing to provide security the night of the shootings.
“We believe there was significant negligence, that indeed there may have been gross negligence,” Marc Bern, one of the lawyers representing the victims, said during a press conference Tuesday near the theater.
Bern’s law firm gained notoriety for representing thousands of New York City police and firefighters who suffered health problems after responding to the Sept. 11 attacks. Another law firm, Acosta and Williams, which has offices in Boulder, is assisting with the case.
The lawsuit, filed in Arapahoe County District Court, is at least the seventh filed by victims of the July 20 shooting, which left 12 dead and another 58 wounded during a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight rises.”
The other six lawsuits have been filed in federal court. Bern said his firm opted to file in district court because it would likely move faster there and because the jury in a civil case there would be six people as opposed to 12 people at the federal level.
Bern said Cinemark used off-duty police officers for security during the film’s midnight showing at a theater in Texas, but opted not to in Aurora.
That, combined with previous disturbances at the theater, show that Cinemark was aware of the risk that night but still chose not to provide security at the theater, he said.
“They knew or should have known that something like this could happen,” he said.
Cinemark has not yet responded to the most-recent lawsuit, but in a response to one of the federal cases, the Plano, Texas-based theater company said there was no way for them to anticipate such an attack.
“If the history of the fortunately rare mass murders in this country has taught us anything, whether committed by the motiveless unbalanced individual or the terrorist, it is that they are random,” the company’s lawyers wrote in a Sept. 27 motion asking a judge to toss the federal lawsuits.
The company pointed out that family and friends of accused shooter James Holmes didn’t foresee him opening fire inside a crowded theater, and neither did his psychiatrist or the companies that sold him the guns he used.
Bern said he believes the victims in the case should be financially compensated for the psychological damage the shooting caused them.
He said he has been called a “bottom feeder” for seeking money for the victims, but said financial damages are the only recourse the victims have against the theater for its negligence that night.
“We are doing what the law allows, we are seeking compensation for negligence,” he said.