On Tuesday, MGM Resorts filed a series of preemptive federal complaints against the more than 1,000 people who were present at the Route 91 Harvest Festival during last October’s mass shooting in the hopes of insulating itself from being held liable for the deaths, injuries, or damages.
And people are not happy about it.
Countless individuals have taken to social media in the days since, urging a boycott of the chain.
One user called on others to cancel their room reservations or scheduled conferences and conventions at MGM properties including Bellagio, CircusCircus, Luxor, Excaliber, Mandalay Bay, and others with the hashtag #BoycottMGM. Others noted the moral problems with lawsuit, with another user writing, “Suing the victims of the mass shooting to prevent liability claims is disgusting. Your employees carried the bags carrying the weapons! You did not take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent a mass murder.”
Anyone with a conference or convention scheduled at MGM Resorts should cancel it and schedule it in a different venue.
Cancel room reservations at MGM, Bellagio, CircusCircus, Luxor, Excaliber, Mandalay Bay, NewYork NewYork, the Mirage or other MGM property. #BoycottMGM
— ProfessingProfessor 🇺🇸🇮🇱🇺🇦 (@Professing_Prof) July 17, 2018
@MGMResortsIntl. Suing the victims of the mass shooting to prevent liability claims is disgusting. Your employees carried the bags carrying the weapons! You did not take "reasonable steps" to prevent a mass murder. I will be cancelling my MLife acct. #BoycottMGM
— SAVE AMERICA VOTE BLUE🆘🌊🆘 (@AmericansRiseUp) July 17, 2018
While MGM noted that it would not be asking for “money or attorney’s fees,” another Twitter user claimed that “Each victim named in a lawsuit as a defendant will now have to PAY a lawyer to represent them,” calling out the chain for “hitting victims in the wallet when they already have medical bills from [the] shooting.”
The intricacies of the lawsuit aside, another user pointed to the emotional toll of being a victim and living through the shooting and then finding out you were “being sued for getting shot.”
MGM claims this is some legal maneuvering, but imagine if you'd lived through this and then found out you were being sued for getting shot. #BoycottMGM#BoycottMGMResortshttps://t.co/jY5S2PrxnW
— Jamison Floyd (@JFloyd_Popwell) July 18, 2018
For its part, MGM claims that it complied with the 2002 Support Anti-Terrorism by Fostering Effective Technologies Act, which shields companies from liability, since it had hired a security company that is certified by the Department of Homeland Security. But Patrick McNicholas, who is representing 100 of the shooting’s victims, told Bloomberg that MGM’s use of the law to avoid liability is a “stretch.”
He argues that MGM could have handled the situation in a “more humane way,” rather than going after the injured and bereaved.