As future managers and business owners, one of the most important legal (and ethical) issues that you will face is when you are responsible legally or ethically to prevent harm to your clients or customers. In the law, we call this issue negligence. We will be learning about negligence this week in LA245, and while it seems at first to be a lawyer issue, if you look around you see it quickly becomes a crucial business and ethical decision.
Case in point is the lawsuit just filed by victims of the shooting at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater. Most of us have heard about this tragedy. But how many of you thought about whether the movie theater should have had more security to prevent this incident? That is what the plaintiffs are arguing in their lawsuit: that Cinemark, the company that owns the theater, was negligent in failing to provide adequate security. The link above has the entire complaint; read through it and let me know what you think. We will be discussing this in class as well as we learn what the plaintiff’s burden is in a negligence claim.
14 Comments
Joe DiFilippo posted on September 25, 2012 at 9:00 pm
The Colorado shooting was a terrible tragedy. After taking a look through the suit, I believe the movie theater should be held negligent for several reasons. Given that it was the midnight premiere of a widely-anticipated movie, management should have known there would have been a large crowd at the theater until early hours of the morning. It is strange that this theater did not have any alarm systems or security cameras on doors that led to the outside of the theater. I think the theater should have hired a police office due to the large crowd or to have a security company be on-site to ensure the safety of the customers going to see the movie.
Samantha Moravec posted on September 26, 2012 at 8:57 am
Regardless of the fact that the Colorado shooting was an absolutely devastating event, that does not make Cinemark guilty of negligence by any means. From an operations perspective, it is simply not efficient to perform a security check on each customer. Most theaters are insanely busy, particularly in their peak weekend hours, and doing a security check on everyone would be time consuming and frustrating, not to mention costly. The fact is that it doesn’t matter how large the crowd in attendance was or whether or not security was present. The shooter was apparently so mentally unstable and driven by such extreme delusions that if it wasn’t that particular movie theater and Dark Night screening, it most likely would’ve been another theater. A company, like Cinemark, should not be held responsible for the actions of a clinically insane individual, regardless of how tragic a circumstance may be.
KP posted on September 26, 2012 at 9:05 am
This tragedy could have taken place at any cinema, from what I know there is no cinema place that actually has a security check. If costumers had to go through security check same as they had to go through at the airport, it could reduce the interest in cinema in general. Imagine you had to stay in a huge line and arriving 30 minutes before the actual movie starts. I don’t believe they could have seen this coming either.
Marina Mehrtens posted on September 26, 2012 at 11:19 pm
It seems pretty unreasonable that Cinemark be expected to have airport level security at each of their theaters. As devastating as this event was, it was in no way foreseeable by the theater unless they’d be warned ahead of time. It also upsetting that one of the complaints was that employees did not evacuate the theater considering the majority of movie theater employees are high school aged and likely have no training for this kind of situation. This event is upsetting, I understand, but comparable to the case we talked about where the driver purposefully crashed through the fence of a daycare and killed children. Regrettable but unforeseeable, therefore not negligence.
Aysu Otova posted on September 27, 2012 at 12:43 pm
The shooting at the Aurora movie theater was indeed tragic; however, Cinemark shouldn’t be held responsible for the events due to negligence. The movie theater should not have had more security, because at the time, there was no reason to believe that such a tragic event would take place. The movie theater is only held liable to what would be thought of as being a reasonable amount of security. Now that this event has occurred, movie theaters will be expected to have higher security at premieres, but at the time of the shooting there was no expectancy for increased security measures.
Jingyan Tao posted on September 28, 2012 at 4:08 am
Although this tragedy could have taken place in any cinema, I still think the cinema should pay parts of responsibility. There are several reasons to support my opinion. Firstly, the cinema does not have completed security procedures. If the cinema does have a good security rule or something like that, then this tragedy might not happen for weapons might be found in advance. Secondly, this cinema lacks alarm. We cannot avoid things to happen, but we can do something to reduce the loss. The last point is that, this tragedy happened at midnight. It is really a time when accidents are easily to happen, so if the cinema notices this and pay more attention, the result might not be so bad. All in all, I still think the cinema should pay parts of responsibility for this tragedy.
Stephen Wong posted on September 29, 2012 at 4:06 pm
First off, the events that transpired in Colorado were tragic and terrible. I offer my condolences to the victims and victims’ families.
Although, it could be said that Cinemark was negligent to provide security, I do not believe that they are entirely responsible. I’m not sure if a movie ticket has this, but I know for sporting events, there is a fine print on the back of the ticket. For example, a Red Sox ticket would probably say something like “The holder of this ticket assumes all risks and responsibilites incidental to the game of baseball…” That means basically, if you were hit in the head by a foul ball, Fenway Park and the Red Sox would not be responsible for such an injury.
Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure a movie ticket has something similar to a baseball ticket and that is why I think Cinemark will prevail. However, Cinemark does have a responsibility to have security staff on site patrolling inside and outside, making occasionally checks throughout the entire night, so the plaintiff may have a case there if Cinemark failed to provide absolutely no security.
Lindsay Ying posted on September 30, 2012 at 6:08 pm
For this case I think Cinemark has some responsibility but not all. For negligence there needs to be 5 elements; Duty of due care, breach, factual causes, foreseeable damage and injury. There was someone got hurt so yes injury has been occurred. Duty of due also occurred since the cinema is to provide a enjoyable place for audience to watch movie. when the tragedy happened, the theater failed to protect its customers so it breach its duty. however an important part to notice is that someone holds a gun and show up in a cinema to kill people is not normal and would not be foreseen by any cinema. it is almost like the truck running over the lawn of the kindergarden. so Cinemark cannot foresee this accident. although its lack of security check or security system failed to protect its customers. therefore it should only be partially responsible.
Oliver Koester posted on October 2, 2012 at 1:32 am
I do not believe Cinemark can be held responsible in this case. Tragic as it may be, a premeditated mass shooting is not inline with what could be considered reasonable risks for the theater, therefor it cannot be expected of CInemark to have had the necessary security to prevent that type of tragedy. In the future I suspect cinema security, atleast for premiers may be increased, but I strongly feel that the security or lack thereof at the cinema cannot be considered negligent in this extreme of a case.
JP Weldon posted on October 4, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Although the shooting in Colorado was a horrific tragedy, I do not think that Cinemark was negligent in failing to provide adequate security. It was not foreseeable that a shooting would take place in the movie theatre, and therefore Cinemark did not breach their duty to protect the victims of the shooting.
Nick Li posted on October 7, 2012 at 1:24 pm
This crime was unforeseeable. Using the plaintiff’s logic, we’d have to hire security guards where every huge crowd is, which would woefully inefficient. This parallels the case in the law book where that guy drove his car into the day care center playground with all the kids. It’s awful that it happened and the victims want compensation, but it’s impossible to take precautionary measures for every danger out there.
Jenny Perales posted on October 22, 2012 at 5:40 pm
As a Coloradan, I can’t describe how tragic and horrifying the move theater shooting was for me personally. Emotions aside, I do not think that Cinemark was negligent in failing to provide adequate security for the midnight showing. The shooting was not at all foreseeable and the movie theater did not breach their duty of care because they operated as a normal, reasonable movie theater would.
Stephanie posted on November 23, 2012 at 9:11 pm
The Colorado shooting was a absolute tragedy, and it made me for paranoid about the movie theaters for the longest time. I believe Cinemark should not be held accountable for breaching its duty of care. Although the article outlines that the theatre lacked some security measures such as a security guard and an alarm on the door, none of these would have really prevented the tragedy. It is not foreseeable to have someone intentionally kill and wound people in a movie theatre. In addition, before the incident it may have seem a little over the top to have security check similar to that of airport’s to check for weapons.
los angeles security guard companies posted on December 13, 2012 at 8:01 am
At every place, there is a need of security guards, like wise it is very imperative to have security guards at the theaters for the public. This has proven by the incident at Colorado movie theater. This is very tragic situation. I support the victims for filing lawsuit against the Cinemark. With this at least movie, theater will take proper steps to secure the people.