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Three of the audience members at a July 20 midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises today sued the theater owner. A pair of lawsuits (read them here) claim that Cinemark failed to provide adequate security at its Century 16 location in Aurora, Colorado for the opening night of The Dark Knight Rises. “The gunman made one or more trips from his car through the open exterior door of Auditorium 9, bringing his arsenal and ammunition through that open door. Throughout that time, no employee or security personnel contacted him, deterred him, monitored him or stopped him from that re-entry,” the suit filed by Denise Traynom and Brandon Axelrod says. Joshua Nowlan, who along with Axelrod received gunshot wounds, also filed a similar suit today. The shooting by James Eagen Holmes killed 12 people and left 58 wounded. “There was no alarm activated during the many minutes while the gunman was stockpiling his arsenal, and inside the theater shooting people,” one of the lawsuits states. “There was no action taken by theater employees to safely evacuate the many people left in Auditorium 9,” it further claims. Asking for a jury trial, the suits say that in each case the damages exceed $75,000. Plaintiffs are represented by Deirdre Ostrowski, Michael Keating, William Keating and Christian Habas of Denver firm Keating Wagner Polidori Free.
Related:
Cinemark Won’t Address Aurora Questions And Its Fallout
Christian Bale Visits Aurora Theater Shooting Victims
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.
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Josh is a single Dad who was shot twice while using his body to shield his friends. He has casts on his leg and his arm. He has endured 5 major surgeries to repair the large wounds in his right forearm and left calf. He is still struggling with a great deal of pain, both physically and mentally. If any of you would like to contribute directly to help this single Dad, please go to theaurora12.org and click on “help the injured.” You will find a link to help him there.
Way to be constructive. This is what these victims need. Not a lawsuit. Just because something horrible happens doesn’t mean that there.has to be a lawsuit. Few if any ,ovie theaters would be equipped to prevent an event like the one that took place in Aurora.
I feel bad for what Josh went through and wish him well, but maybe tell him not to launch ridiculous lawsuits that are obviously nothing but a money grab. What happened was horrible, but trying to find blame outside of the person who actually did it is a fruitless and empty path. These pointless lawsuits are one of the things that’s wrong with America. People searching for others to blame.
What a horribly unfortunate situation this was and is. With that, I hope these people don’t see a cent and Keating Wagner Polidori Free winds up looking like the a-holes they surely are.
what happened to all these people was horrifying and nightmarish, but to assume some CLASS OF THURSDAY rent-a-cop at a MOVIETHEATER armed with a 9″ flashlight could do anything at all against a full-blown psychotic with a sub-machine gun, tactical shotgun, handgun and full body armor is unreasonable. They deserve private donations and our nation’s sympathy and respect. Not Cinemark’s money.
Exactly.
They should consider suing the federal government for allowing every idiot in the U.S. to carry a gun. This country horrifies me.
This case is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with modern America’s overly litigious society.
This is a horrible situation but I don’t think the theater is the one to blame, why isn’t there a civil suit against the shooter. If the shooting happened at McDonald’s — would mcdonalds be to blame?
Actually that did happen. A few years ago a man named James Huberty walked into a McD’s in CA and opened fire killing and injuring dozens of people. They tried to sue as well but the ruling went to McD’s favor.
I agree. The only person who should be blamed for the horrific tragedy should be the shooter.
I’m sorry haters, but I think they actually have a case. If indeed the gunman entered the back door of the theater multiple times like the lawyers claim, and no security measures are on that door, if I was on that jury, I would rule for the victims. I think it’s common sense if you’re sitting in a dark theater, the theater should be securing outer doors that lead to the parking lot or whereever, where any bum, or gunman, off the street could enter.
I see the Cinemark settling this out, and what the victims get, they deserve.
I know I won’t be going to any Cinemark theater anytime soon, knowing their security is so lax.
The law requires that each cinema has emergency exits. No cinema in history has guards at emergency exits that might be opened once or maybe twice a year.
Designing a secured emergency exist system might be expected now, but it’s entirely unreasonable to think it should have existed during this tragedy.
What an idiotic post. He propped open a fire exit. It has to be unlocked from the inside during business hours by fire code. The local fire code would determine if it had to be alarmed as well. Deciding something on a jury based on your personal opinion and not the facts of the case or knowing what the local laws say is why we live in a society that is sue happy. They chose to go there and there is absolutely no way the theater could have know this would happen. That’s why it is a tragedy. Nor should a security guard, or worse some 16 year old kid working at a theater after school, confront an armed madman. You probably should never leave your house again if you are so scared of what might happen. Newsflash, security is lax everywhere. Chicken little’s like you are why we have to get groped just to get on an airplane now.
haters? wtf? what a horrible use of that word. no one is “hating” in the victims of the shooting idiot
When you find a theatre with alarmed back doors, please let me know. I’ve worked for three chains locally and NONE had them. The exit doors are not where the problem is. This person could have easily did the same thing when the line was outside the door. He could’ve entered a packed store on Black Friday with the same result. Not having you at ANY theatre (as none have alarmed doors) is a relief. You are the kind of person that is a liability to a business.
“Haters”? Because we don’t like to see yet another pointless lawsuit, further jamming the courts and slowing down the process? Yes, the shooter got in through the back exit. Yes, better security might have prevented that. But was the lack of security to blame or was the shooter? Maybe the victims should sue the gun manufacturers, or the government for allowing the sale of the guns, or the lock manufacturers for not making a better lock, or maybe they can sue other people in the theatre for not taking down the shooter.
And your claim that you won’t go to a Cinemark theatre because of their lack of security, only makes sense if you also won’t get in a car, go into your bathroom or really even get out of your bed, because you’ve got a better chance of being killed driving to the theatre, taking a shower or walking across the street than sitting in a movie theatre.
It’s horrible what happened, but people need to stop overreacting and trying to find blame and leach money trying to salve their wounds.
Why is there a need to blame others, the shooter is the one to blame. If this theatre had a guard at the door who tried to stop him, he/she would just be another victim. I completely lose respect and sympathy for victims of crime when they launch these ridiculous lawsuits. Cimemark was also a victim of this crime.
thank you, a voice of reason. If anyone bothered to read the filing, they will see that Cinemark FAILED to secure the theater to keep it safe from having this asshole go in and out of an Emergency exit, several times, to get his murderous gear. Yes, had a ‘rent a cop’ or just a regular cinemark employee been monitoring that door, they could have closed it and called the police.
I’m sorry, but this is a valid lawsuit and I hope the shooting victims win a fair settlement to help with medical bills and loss of wages from work, etc.
Yes, an employee or security guard COULD HAVE checked on the door, which may have very well lead to their death, but does that mean they should be sued for millions of dollars? Were they negligent? No. They just didn’t stop an event no one would have foreseen.
On a side, but related note, these ridiculous lawsuits are slowly taking away people’s freedoms as companies and governments need to protect themselves more and more from greedy people who need someone to blame. If my kid falls off the monkey bars and breaks her arm, I don’t sue the school or city government. But because of ridiculous lawsuits a lot of things that I played on as a child are not legal because a child has gotten hurt from it and a parent sued. Maybe we should have a class action lawsuit against people who sue for ridiculous reasons.
To the people saying the suit is ridiculous, I bet your opinion would be different if you were one of the victims. Do you have any idea how outrageous the hospital/ physical therapy/occupational therapy & counseling are going to cost these people? No, they may not have been able to stop the attack once it was in progress, but where I live theatre workers check out the theatre right before the movie starts, and they should’ve had some sort of emergency evacuation procedure….ESPECIALLY if there are 16 theaters there.
I agree the bulk of the blame lies with the psychotic shooter, but the theatre should’ve been more secure.
Oh please this has no merit. Some ambulance chaser is suing the only entity in the chain of events that has any money. They won’t sue the shooter because he is a broke college kid that will never get out of jail. They are banking on Cinemark settling out of court to avoid looking like jerks for fighting in court. He didn’t “Come and go several times” from anything I have seen either. He went to the movie, walked out and left the door propped open and then came back in and shot the place up. Once again though, the wusses in society will gladly give up more of their rights because of an isolated incident. Enjoy a good old TSA style genital grope the next time you go to the movies. If people like you really need someone to blame, besides the obviousness of blaming the shooter, then blame fire codes that require that exit to be there and to be unlocked from the inside during business hours. There is no law requiring it to be monitored or guarded and it isn’t negligent because no other theater does it either. Negligence requires you do something, or fail to do something, that a reasonably prudent person would. I’m surprised these ambulance chasers aren’t suing the gun companies and the people that sold him the guns and ammo on the internet. The cops couldn’t even get in the theater because of the gas, it’s idiotic to think a security guard or employee could have done any better. People in this country need to figure out how to take care of themselves and stop depending on a nanny state to regulate their lives.
You are absolutely correct. And even if you were not they are requesting a jury trial. Juries these days are extremely empathetic to the plight of the wronged. If they can get this before a jury – and that’s a big if – the plaintiffs are looking at an enormous windfall.
The guy entered and re-entered repeatedly. It is incumbent on the theater to provide a minimal amount of security.
“It is incumbent on the theater to provide a minimal amount of security.”
And they did. The doors were locked and he had pay to get into the theatre first. When you have to pay more for your movie ticket because some idiot sues the theatres and make them add more staff and security, guess who ends up paying in the end, is as always the case?
But no one thinks about these things when they sue. They don’t care. They just want their money.
I hope Cinemark takes this to a jury. No jury is going to blame the cinema for this.
To even try to sue them is disgusting. What happened is a tragedy that no one imagined. Even the victims thought it was a joke at first.
It was imagined. A trailer that was being shown with TDKR showed a shooting in a movie theater.
And considering movie theaters and other types of theaters have been terrorist targets in other countries, the idea that a gunman would go after a movie theater is equally imaginable as someone bombing a Sbarro.
If someone really wants to commit a terrorist act against a movie theatre, you think a little extra security is going to stop them? Are you kidding me? If they are going to kill a theatre full of people, you think having to kill a security guard is going to prevent them?
If you really want to make everything safer, have metal detectors at restaurants, malls and theatres, schools behind electrified fences and armed soldiers at every street corner. Then everything will be safer.
Won’t be going to cinemark because their lack of security???? Sooooooooo, you’re a moron.
Put an alarm on the door. Plain and simple. Every theater in america if you want. But a law suit is ridiculous. It will probably get a grand jury case, win millions and we will all pay for the unfortunate situation. If that’s what it takes for this to never happen again, it’s worth the price of admission.
So I worked in a cinema in the UK where the fire doors were alarmed. I remember a few times people wanted to sneak out the back door to get to their car quicker. The alarm would go off in a panel in the office, you’d go to the exit, look around, sometimes you’d see somebody, sometimes you wouldn’t. And then you’d shut it.
Of course I’d be dead, if I’d been in that cinema.
What a dumb lawsuit. Greedy, ambulance/coffin chasing lawyers.
Actually, when this tragedy first happened, Deadline had an interesting article discussing the history of violence in theatres and they pointed out something like no lawsuit against a chain has ever won. The reason is they aren’t responsible for a random person bringing a gun and using it. It’s a theatre not an airplane.
I doubt anybody is arguing that the cinema was wholly culpable. I assume that the argument is that they were contributorily negligent. In a Wild West nation like America where you can buy guns with your food shopping, there’s a compelling argument that the cinema knew or ought to have known that somebody may have entered with a deadly weapon.
My heart goes out to the lost and injured and their families. If you live in a country where guns are readily available to lunatics, Cinemas should be equipped to safeguard their legitimate visitors/customers.
The wild west? The stupidity just gets deeper here. He did not have a single gun on him that did not require a background check and had to have been purchased from a licensed dealer, not at the “grocery store” like you seem to think. Even the shotgun he had was tactical, meaning he didn’t buy it at a sporting good store. You must be European with the amount of misinformation in such a small post.
If it’s the Wild Weat, whose fault is that?
Sue the NRA, not Cinemark.
Everyone feels for the victims but I wish these lawsuits would stop. You can’t assign blame to people who aren’t responsible. Now Cinemark is going to have to pay for something that was beyond their control.
No you will pay for it with a higher ticket price. Even though you had nothing to do with it.
The smoking gun will be if they had security cameras on the door – inside and/or out.
In addition to failing to have alarmed exit doors, the lawsuits claim Cinemark was negligent in failing to hire extra security for the midnight showing or generally protect patrons who were sitting in a darkened theater. They also say Cinemark failed to help evacuate the theater even after the shooting ended. The lights were either off or very low even after the gunfire stopped, according to the lawsuit.
Cinemark could counter-sue the victims for failing to exercise their 2nd Amendment right to carry their own guns under the Colorado concealed carry law. Anyone without a criminal record can buy a pistol of various caliber and you can carry your own gun in a holster under your shirt or jacket.
If everyone in that theater had been armed with their own pistol Holmes would have been shot in a hail of gunfire. The same goes for the McDonalds shooter and 15 or 20 years ago a guy walked into a Burger King and opened fire and luckily there was another guy there who was armed with his own pistol and he shot the killer dead.
Arming everyone with a pistol in a theatre is NOT a solution to general public safety, regardless of the outcome! Don’t be ridiculous NRA. Just what society needs. There is just as much of chance of armed individuals getting into heated altercations during the course of a day and because they are armed end up killing someone. The potential to injure is too great with everyone armed daily, even if there are “good cases” where you actually happen to take out someone who is a viable threat.Enough with trying to leverage the Second Amendment to create a weaponized society of gunslingers.
I used to manage a Cinemark Theater many years ago (20 years ago) for 4 years so I speak from experience. Back then we had a strict policy to have an usher check the emergency doors during the trailer showing and or before the start of the movie to prevent anyone from entering the theater via that door. We managers usually enforced this policy. I have gone to many movie theaters since leaving that company and have noticed the “lack of security check” of those doors with other movie theater chains prior to this incident. I am not saying lack of that security check could have preve prevented this incident. I am saying that if they had checked that door, “it might have prevented” it. But after this, I am pretty sure that movie theater chains are now enforcing that policy. If not, they better. In this case, everyone is a victim in this unfortunate incident. My heart and prayers goes to all of them.
Good call lets shred the constitution! Who needs all those pesky “rights”?
The thing is, as I’ve suggested in the past, what type of security cameras were there and were they being monitored? Every chain theater I’ve been to has cameras everyone – in the lobby, in the hallways,outside the theaters and exits. For security,safty, keep an eye out for people with cameras and people sneaking into the theater!
If they did have cameras and they were supposed to be monitored, they could of been aware of that something wasn’t right and called the police.
Oohh. So clever and so scary.
From a look at the comments, most people here are actually clued into reality, which makes me feel a bit better after having to read this article about yet another frivolous lawsuit in our uber-litigious society. That this is a suit is born out of such a tragic event that was wholly perpetrated by a single deranged psychotic, and has now turned into a money-making opportunity for a law firm representing some of the victims, is sadly par for the course. I assume that Keating Wagner Polidori Free is not doing this good work pro bono and is looking to make their 30% fee on the biggest number possible? This is such a bummer. I really hope to see the day when people wake up to the fact that huge lawsuit awards and settlements are not “free” money like landing on Community Chest….there are huge opportunity costs associated with these payouts, from insurance rates to diminished state and local resources to the costs of individual goods and services (i.e. movie tickets). Why would this lawsuit stop at movie theaters? Shouldn’t restaurants and libraries and school gyms that have lax security around their emergency exit doors all be sued preemptively to dissuade another act of violence? Why ever take personal responsibility or simply mourn a horrific happening without trying to assign “blame” that will reward you in some fashion?
I work in a cinemark and have for the last three years….all our emergency exits are alarmed and go off when opened….I don’t disagree that cinemark should get sued but not the owner but instead their regional leader or corp. It is in fact their job to make sure that these things are working and up to par when doing routine audits…sorry I don’t blame the victims for wanting to do this I can’t imagine the medical and mental financial crisis these people are going through and sadly when jobs aren’t done and safety isn’t addressed there are more people to blame then just the shooter…you cannot say what you would or wouldn’t do in this situation until you lay there injured watching your loved ones die in front of your eyes…not to be dramatic or harsh but people are quick to throw judgement without the facts
My daughters were in theater 9 during the shooting. We met the Cinemark attorneys and went back in the theater yesterday as a part of the girls therapy. The door he came in is not an emergency exit. Anyone can use it to leave the theater…no alarm or emergency sign. He propped it open after the movie started and quietly came back in. It was too dark for anyone to notice. Until they saw the lights from the tear gas and bullets. There is no alarm on the door and it can be used as a regular exit. It is locked from the outside and nobody can get in that way. There is security at that theater on the weekends as well as midnite premiers that are rated R. Batman is PG-13 and it was during the week, hence no security. Even if there was an off duty officer or security guard there it would have been impossible to stop him because normally they are in the lobby. Although, i cant help but wonder if there had happen to be security cameras around the building maybe someone would have seen him. After all, it did take him about 4 minutes once he went back outside to put on all his gear and grab his ammunition. They are starting construction this week at Century 16 and plan to reopen in January. Hopefully, they will add some cameras around the building and maybe think about securing those doors better during business hours. On a side note, no law suit is going to make this better. No amount of money will bring back the ones we loved or take away the nightmares. There is already money available through the compensation fund, COVA, and multiple private organizations willing to help. The only one who should suffer right now is that monster of a human…all these lawyers and everyone else involved should soley be focused on getting rid of him instead of all the other BS.