Las Vegas, NVA 21-year-old college student from California has filed a multi-defendant lawsuit claiming their negligence is responsible for the injuries she sustained at a country music festival in Las Vegas as a deranged shooter fired a hail of automatic gunfire into a crowd from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Casino Resort killing 58 people and wounding hundreds more on October 1, 2017.
One of the bullets struck Paige Gasper under her right arm, travelled through her breast tissue, shattered 15 ribs and strafed her liver before existing her body. A Good Samaritan helped Gasper take cover beside a dumpster. A second Good Samaritan loaded her onto the back of a truck and took her and other wounded concert goers to a local hospital.
Gasper was the only person among that group to survive.
The named defendants include the Slide Fire Solutions (the manufacturer of rifle Bump Stock), MGM Resorts International, Live Nation Entertainment, the Mandalay Bay Casino Resort and the estate of gunman Stephen Paddock.
Paige Gasper is represented by Muhammad Aziz from the Houston law firm of Abraham Watkins Nichols Sorrels Agosto and Aziz.
The statement of claim alleges that the hotel failed in its duty to provide proper surveillance of its premises and failed to “respond or otherwise act upon Paddock’s shooting of Mandalay Bay security guard” who was shot “six minutes” before Paddock opened fire on a country music crowd of 22,000 people in a field below his hotel suite.
“The fact that someone can come into the hotel with ten suitcases and use the service elevator is a concern,” says Aziz. “This could have been bomb making material. The situation we have in the world right now they should have been more vigilante.
“I would also think the hotel should have had a plan for an active shooter,” says Aziz.
In addition, the lawsuit claims that the concert promoter, Live Nation, “failed to design, build and mark adequate exits in case of an emergency” and “failed to properly train and supervise employees in an appropriate plan of action in case of an emergency”.
“From the Gasper family’s point of view, the important thing is to bring some changes to the event planning industry. They are country music lovers and they go to a lot of events,” says Aziz. “The way the world is these days it makes sense for the event industry to provide better crowd safety.
“From talking with Paige she says nobody really knew what was going on. There was no exit sign, and there was no public address system to direct the crowd. It was just chaos. If there is a big event with 22,000 people there needs to be a plan for an emergency like this,” says Aziz. “We know in this day and age the way things are a venue like this can be a target and the concert organizers owe it to customers to have some contingency plan for that.”
The statement of claim also alleges Slide Fire Solutions was negligent because it manufactured and sold Bump Stock devices that allowed Paddock to bypass laws regarding automatic weapons and failed to warn the public about the potential dangers of the device.
Paige Gasper already has significant medical expenses and Aziz says she will likely need future medical attention. “She has a lung injury as well,” he says.
Aziz says his office has been contacted by other people who were injured during the Las Vegas shooting.
“These can be what we would call catastrophe injuries. Some people may require long term medical care. There are going to be a lot injury cases here,” says Aziz.
The lawsuit asks for general and special damages in excess of $15,000 from each of the defendants. In addition, the lawsuit asks for punitive and exemplary damages against Slide Fire Solutions in an amount to be determined at trial.
The lawsuit was filed in District Court, Clark County, Nevada.
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