You Are Not a Number to Us
If you are reading this at two in the morning, the way so many people first find us, you are not looking for a webpage. You are looking for someone who will tell you the truth about what happened to your family, what the law will and will not do for you, and whether anyone in this country is going to be held responsible for the worst mass shooting in modern American history.
We have read the FBI files. We have walked through the Nevada wrongful death statute. We have studied the $800 million global settlement MGM Resorts and the other defendants reached with the bulk of the families in 2020. We have watched the new details surface, year after year, as hundreds of pages of once-secret investigative documents make their way into the public record, including the letters Stephen Paddock’s friend wrote begging him not to do what he was about to do, warning him as early as May 2017 that he believed Paddock was “going to do something very bad.”
Our role, if you hire us, is not to promise you a number we cannot deliver. Our role is to walk into the room with the receipts, the law, the medical science, and the proof of what was known, and what was ignored, and to fight for every dollar and every admission the system owes your family. That is what we do. That is all we do. And that is what we will do for you, if you are one of the families we can still help.
Ralph Manginello has spent 27+ years in courtrooms, including federal court, building catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death cases in Texas and across the country. Lupe Peña, our associate, came up inside a national insurance-defense firm. He sat in the rooms where claims like yours were priced, denied, delayed, and devalued. He now uses that knowledge for the people the defense used to be aimed at. He is fluent in Spanish. We serve your family fully in either language.
This page is long because the truth is long. We will not shorten either.
The $800 Million Global Settlement: What It Covered, What It Did Not, and Why It Did Not End the Story
In October 2020, MGM Resorts International, Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, and the estate of Stephen Paddock reached a global settlement valued at approximately $800 million with the majority of the more than 4,000 claims that had been filed against them. The settlement was approved by a Clark County District Court judge, and the bulk of the families of the 60 victims, as well as the surviving concertgoers who had been injured, received tiered payouts. The highest amounts went to the families of the deceased; smaller but still substantial amounts went to those with serious physical injuries. The settlement was, in our view, the largest single resolution in the history of American mass-shooting litigation, and it took real pressure to reach.
Here is what the settlement did, and what it did not do.
What the settlement did: It resolved the vast majority of the wrongful-death and personal-injury claims against MGM, Mandalay Bay, and the Paddock estate. It spared the surviving families years of additional litigation against a corporation with the resources to outspend any individual plaintiff. It gave the bulk of the families certainty, and closure of a kind, in the form of compensation that did not depend on a jury verdict.
What the settlement did not do: It did not include Live Nation Entertainment, the promoter of the Route 91 Harvest festival. Live Nation remained a defendant in many of the cases, and Live Nation’s role in the security, egress, and venue-safety decisions that night is the subject of continuing litigation and continuing scrutiny. The settlement also did not include the security contractors — the companies that provided guard services and security personnel to both the hotel and the festival venue — whose own conduct during the ten-to-fifteen-minute shooting is, in our view, fair ground for additional legal claims. And the settlement did not include the federal government, against which a separate set of claims — alleging that the FBI failed to act on advance warning of the attack — remain under active litigation. As of the most recent reporting, the FBI’s own internal review has acknowledged that the Bureau could have done more with the advance warning it received, and that acknowledgment, while it is not a concession of liability, is the closest the federal government has come to saying that the failure to act had consequences.
The settlement was, in short, a major resolution of part of the case. It was not the end of the case. And for families who opted out of the settlement, for those whose claims were against the defendants not included in the deal, and for those with separate legal theories that were never part of the global settlement, our work continues.
The Night, in Nevada Law: What NRS 41.085 Actually Says
Nevada’s wrongful-death statute is NRS 41.085, and it is the legal authority for the claims that the families of the 60 deceased concertgoers have been bringing. In plain English, NRS 41.085 allows the heirs and personal representatives of a person whose death was caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another to recover damages from the person who caused the death. The damages available under the statute include the pecuniary loss suffered by the heirs — the financial support, services, and guidance the deceased would have provided — and the loss of companionship, affection, and consortium suffered by the surviving spouse and children. Punitive damages are available where the conduct of the defendant evinced “a conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others,” which is the Nevada standard for punitive exposure.
“When the death of any person, whether or not a resident of this State, is caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another, the heirs of the decedent and the personal representatives of the decedent may maintain an action for damages against the person who caused the death.”
— NRS 41.085(1), Nevada Revised Statutes.
For survivors who were themselves injured — the 500-plus who were shot or trampled, and the many thousands more who witnessed the shooting up close and suffered lasting psychological injury — the companion statute is NRS 11.190(4)(e), which sets the personal-injury statute of limitations at two years from the date of injury. That deadline is the same for almost every bodily-injury claim arising out of the shooting, including claims for post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, hearing loss, and the orthopedic injuries that came from being trampled in the panic. The wrongful-death statute of limitations is also two years under Nevada law, running from the date of death — and, importantly, for the two victims who died years after the shooting from shooting-related injuries, the clock on their wrongful-death claims ran from the date of their later death, not from the date of the shooting. That distinction matters for the families of those two victims, and we have worked with families in exactly that situation.
Nevada’s comparative-fault rule, found at NRS 41.141, is a modified comparative negligence system with a 51% bar. In plain terms, a plaintiff who is found to be 50% or less at fault can still recover, with their recovery reduced in proportion to their share of fault. A plaintiff who is found to be 51% or more at fault recovers nothing. The defense will almost always try to assign some share of fault to the concertgoers themselves — for being in the open, for not fleeing fast enough, for any number of reasons — and our job in every case is to make sure that the comparison is made on the evidence, not on the defense’s wishful thinking. In a mass-shooting case, the shooter himself bears essentially all of the moral and legal fault, and the companies that owned the building, organized the event, and provided the security bear their own proportionate share. The victims had no fault to assign.
The Evidence That Already Died, and What Is Still Left
Evidence in a mass-shooting case dies on the same clocks as in any other catastrophic case — but the volume and the speed of the loss are different. In the first seventy-two hours after October 1, 2017, we would have sent preservation letters to MGM, Mandalay Bay, Live Nation, the security contractors, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. By the end of that week, we would have served litigation-hold demands on every entity that held a piece of the record. Most of that work has now been done — by the families’ counsel, by the federal investigators, by the public-records litigants who pried loose the FBI documents, and by the global settlement process. But for any family whose case has not been resolved, the preservation work continues.
Here is what was at stake, and what is left.
Hotel surveillance video from Mandalay Bay, including the hallway video of the shooter’s room and the elevator-hall footage that was widely reported, was preserved and has been the subject of extensive public disclosure through the litigation. The shooter’s room was preserved, the windows were preserved, and the physical evidence of the breach has been documented in court records.
Festival venue surveillance from the Route 91 Harvest event was preserved by Live Nation and by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Some of this footage was played in open court during the early stages of the litigation and has been the subject of news reporting since 2017.
Hotel key-card records that show who entered and left the shooter’s room in the days leading up to October 1, 2017 — including the suitcases of weapons that were carried up in the service elevator — were preserved as part of the MGM discovery process. These records are crucial because they help establish the timeline of the shooter’s preparation, which in turn is part of the constructive-notice case MGM would face if the case had gone to trial.
FBI case files, including witness interviews, behavioral-analysis-unit reports, and the 17,000-plus pages of documents the Bureau has been releasing in stages since 2019, are now a matter of public record. The latest release, in the cycle covered by the new reporting, includes the Jim Nixon letters and the previously undisclosed interview with a fellow gambler who told investigators that Paddock had been complaining about the casino’s treatment of high-roller players. These documents are available through the FBI’s reading room and through civil-records requests.
Police radio traffic and incident-command recordings from LVMPD, including the timeline of the first officer arrivals, are part of the public record and have been the subject of independent reviews.
ATF firearms trace records showing the source and sale history of the weapons the shooter used are part of the federal investigation and have been referenced in court filings.
What is harder to find now is anything that was not preserved in the litigation. The hotel’s own security-shift logs, the maintenance records for the doors and windows of the shooter’s suite, the personnel files of the security staff on duty that night, and the email and text-message records between MGM personnel in the days leading up to and after the shooting are all things that the defense had an interest in, and they were preserved through the litigation process. For a family pursuing a case that was not part of the global settlement, those records are still available through the discovery process. For a family whose case was settled, those records are part of the settlement file and are generally treated as confidential.
For the families of the two victims who died years after the shooting, the medical records that document the connection between the original injuries and the later death are the single most important category of evidence. Those records have to be assembled carefully, with treating-physician support, to establish the causal chain. We have done that work in other cases, and we know how to do it here.
Act fast. The federal system makes MGM preserve what it preserved, but the parts of the record that the FBI sat on for years are no longer “live” — they are public, and they are losing context every year. If your family is still considering a claim, the first move is to make sure every piece of evidence that exists is in the hands of someone who can use it.
What This Case Is Worth: The Honest Answer
We do not promise numbers. We will not tell you that your case is worth $X million, because every case depends on its own facts, and the only honest way to value a case is to build it and let the evidence speak. What we will tell you is what the law in Nevada allows a family to recover in a wrongful-death case of this kind, and what the existing settlement context tells us about the realistic range of outcomes.
Under NRS 41.085, the recoverable damages in a wrongful-death case in Nevada include the pecuniary loss suffered by the heirs — the financial support, services, and guidance the deceased would have provided over the course of a normal lifetime. For a 30-year-old concertgoer with a working spouse and young children, the pecuniary-loss component alone, computed by a forensic economist using the deceased’s worklife expectancy and earnings trajectory, can run into the low single-digit millions. For a 60-year-old concertgoer near retirement, the pecuniary-loss component will be lower, but the loss-of-consortium and loss-of-companionship components remain substantial. Punitive damages are available under Nevada law where the defendant’s conduct shows a conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others, and the standard is met in many premises-security and mass-shooting cases, including this one.
For survivors who were themselves injured, the damages include past and future medical expenses (a single night in a trauma ICU can cost more than the average American’s annual income, and a spinal cord injury or severe traumatic brain injury can run into the multi-millions over a lifetime), past and future lost wages and earning capacity, and pain and suffering. For survivors who were physically uninjured but developed PTSD, anxiety, depression, or other psychological injury from witnessing the shooting, the damages are real and compensable, but the proof is more difficult and requires careful medical documentation from the outset.
The $800 million global settlement is not a per-case number; it is the total amount paid out across thousands of claims, with the highest payments going to the families of the deceased and the survivors with the most severe physical injuries. The settlement’s tiered structure suggests a per-claim value range that is informative without being binding on any individual case. The families whose claims were not part of the global settlement — whether because they opted out, because their defendants were not MGM or the Paddock estate, or because their claims were not yet ripe — are not bound by that framework, and their cases are evaluated on their own facts.
We will not give you a number on a website. We will give you a number after we have seen the medical records, the employment records, the family relationship documentation, and the specific evidence in your case. That is the only honest way to do it.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Las Vegas mass shooting settlement?
In October 2020, MGM Resorts International, Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, and the estate of Stephen Paddock reached a global settlement valued at approximately $800 million with the majority of the more than 4,000 claims that had been filed against them. The settlement covered the bulk of the wrongful-death and personal-injury claims arising out of the October 1, 2017 shooting at the Route 91 Harvest festival. The settlement did not include Live Nation Entertainment (the festival promoter) or the security contractors, and it did not include the federal government, against which separate claims have been pursued.
Who was eligible for the settlement?
The settlement was structured to compensate the families of the 60 victims who died (58 on the night of October 1, 2017, and two more who later died of shooting-related injuries) and the 500-plus survivors who were physically injured by gunfire or in the stampede. Tiered payouts gave the highest amounts to the families of the deceased and the survivors with the most severe physical injuries. Many survivors with psychological injuries alone were not in the primary settlement pool and have pursued separate claims.
What if my family opted out of the settlement?
If your family opted out of the global settlement, your case was preserved and was not extinguished by the deal. The right to pursue an individual wrongful-death or personal-injury claim survives, subject to the statute of limitations. We have represented families in exactly that situation, and we can review the procedural posture of your case to determine what claims remain available and against which defendants.
Can I still sue MGM Resorts or Mandalay Bay?
That depends on whether your claim was part of the global settlement. If it was, your rights against MGM and Mandalay Bay have been released, and the question becomes whether any separate theory survives. If it was not — if you opted out, if you had a claim that was not part of the deal, or if your claim is against a defendant not covered by the settlement (Live Nation, a security contractor, the federal government) — your right to sue remains. We will review the specific facts of your case and tell you honestly what doors are still open.
What is the statute of limitations for my case in Nevada?
Under NRS 11.190(4)(e), the personal-injury statute of limitations in Nevada is two years from the date of injury. For the October 1, 2017 shooting, that deadline would have run on October 1, 2019 for most claims. The wrongful-death statute of limitations is also two years under Nevada law, running from the date of death — and for the two victims who died years later, the clock ran from the date of their later death, not from the date of the shooting. There are limited exceptions — minority, incapacity, discovery rule, equitable tolling — that may apply, but those are case-specific. If you are reading this and you are unsure whether the deadline has passed for your claim, call us before you make a decision; we will tell you the truth about your clock.
What evidence is still available in this case?
The major categories of evidence in the Route 91 Harvest case — hotel surveillance video, festival venue surveillance, FBI case files (including the recently released Jim Nixon letters and the gambler interview), hotel key-card records, LVMPD radio and incident-command recordings, and ATF firearms trace records — were preserved through the litigation process and are now a matter of public record through the FBI’s reading room and through civil-records requests. For families whose cases are still active, the discovery process remains open, and additional records can be compelled.
Who besides MGM and Mandalay Bay can be held responsible?
Live Nation Entertainment, as the festival promoter, is a separate defendant in continuing litigation. The security contractors — the companies that provided guard services to both the hotel and the festival venue — are separate defendants whose own conduct on the night of October 1, 2017 is a subject of continuing claims. The federal government, including the FBI, is the subject of separate claims alleging that advance warning of the attack was not acted on. We have experience with each of these defendant categories and can evaluate the viability of a claim against any of them.
What damages can my family recover under Nevada law?
Under NRS 41.085, the recoverable damages in a Nevada wrongful-death case include the pecuniary loss suffered by the heirs (financial support, services, and guidance the deceased would have provided), loss of companionship, affection, and consortium for the surviving spouse and children, and punitive damages where the defendant’s conduct shows a conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others. For survivors who were injured, damages include past and future medical expenses, lost wages and earning capacity, and pain and suffering. The specific value of any case depends on the specific facts and the medical, employment, and family-relationship documentation that supports it.
How much does Attorney911 charge for a case like this?
We work on a contingency fee: 33.33% of any recovery before trial, 40% if the case goes to trial. You pay nothing up front. We do not get paid unless we win your case. The consultation is free, confidential, and available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We will not charge you a fee to evaluate the case and tell you whether we can help.
How do I get started?
Call us at 1-888-ATTY-911 — that is 1-888-288-9911. We are available 24/7. You can also reach us through our contact page or by reviewing our wrongful-death practice area and our brain-injury practice area to understand how we approach these cases. The first conversation costs you nothing, and it gives you the information you need to decide what to do next.
Hablo con alguien en español?
Sí. Lupe Peña, our associate attorney, es completamente bilingüe, y servimos a su familia completamente en español. Llámenos al 1-888-ATTY-911 y we’ll connect you with someone who speaks your language.
Get Help Now
If your family is one of the families we can still help — whether your case is a wrongful-death case against a defendant not covered by the global settlement, a personal-injury case for a survivor who was not part of the deal, an opt-out case that preserved your right to pursue an individual claim, or a claim against the federal government — we want to hear from you.
Call 1-888-ATTY-911. That is 1-888-288-9911. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The consultation is free. There is no fee unless we win.
We have spent 27+ years walking into rooms that other lawyers were afraid to walk into, against insurance carriers that other lawyers were afraid to face, in front of juries that other lawyers were afraid to address. We have built catastrophic-injury and wrongful-death cases on evidence the defense thought was gone, on law the defense thought was settled, and on medicine the defense thought was too expensive to disprove. We are not afraid of this case, and we are not afraid of yours.
Past results depend on the facts of each case and do not guarantee future outcomes.