Outlet mall owners ask Texas Supreme Court to axe mass shooting lawsuit

In 2023, a mass shooter killed eight people and injured seven others at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas. Victims of the shooting argue the mall's owners were negligent in failing to adopt appropriate security measures.(CN) — The largest mall owner in the nation urged the top court in Texas to throw out a lawsuit by victims of a 2023 mass shooting, but at least one justice was skeptical Wednesday.The victims and their families claim the owners of the mall — an open-air shopping center in Allen, Texas, called Allen Premium Outlets — failed to protect against the massacre, which took the lives of eight people and injured seven others. Although the motive of the shooting has never been confirmed, authorities say the shooter, 33-year-old Mauricio Martinez Garcia, had expressed white supremacist and neo-Nazi views and committed the massacre while wearing a tactical vest embroidered with a “RWDS” (“Right Wing Death Squad”) patch.In their August 2024 lawsuit, the plaintiffs argue the mall’s owners — real estate giant Simon Property Group and a pair of corporate affiliates — were negligent by staffing a single unarmed security guard to protect the entire 611,000-square-foot property.Simon Property Group operates over 200 malls and outlet centers across the U.S., making it the largest mall owner in the country. Byron Henry, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, told the Texas Supreme Court that the owners of Allen Premium Outlets were on notice about the risk of shootings involving multiple victims because their other properties had previously experienced them.But the owners’ attorney, Monica Latin, urged the court to rule that the owners did not have a legal duty to protect against the mass shooting. For over 30 years, she said, the Texas Supreme Court has “confirmed the foundational rule that property owners have no general duty under Texas law to protect against third-party acts on their premises, especially criminal acts, and that the exceptions to that general rule are and should be limited.”Justice Debra Lehrmann questioned whether mass shootings should be held to the same standard as other crime.“This is a completely unique, different thing that our country, unlike most countries, has to deal with, it seems,” she said.Latin argued the justices should consider the societal cost of imposing a duty on property owners to prevent mass shootings, including “whether the duty would require conspicuous security at every point of potential contact.”“But you have to balance that against what the other reality is,” Lehrmann responded. “What would that look like? That you have to go through metal detectors, do the things like we do at airports, etc., compared to telling your children goodbye this morning for school, and I hope to see you when you get back home. And that is a reality of what’s out there. So maybe some of those things are not as unreasonable as you’re saying, in light of what’s on the other side of that scale.”The trial court and a state appeals court already denied Simon Property Group’s attempt to dodge the negligence claims, without providing legal reasoning.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads