Last week, 100 survivors and victims of the deadliest mass shooting in Maine history announced their intention to sue the federal government for negligence, seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages through four law firms.
Robert Card History
The mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, a year ago, was carried out by U.S. Army reservist Robert Card. Card had exhibited increasingly erratic mental behavior in the months prior to killing 18 people and injuring 13 others.
Warning signs were noted by many sources, but no action was taken. Intervention before Card committed his atrocities might have been enough to disarm him.
A year earlier, Card, who had been a grenade instructor for eight years, started showing red flags. His personality changed from being calm and calm to suddenly bursting with anger. Six months before his rampage, he became paranoid. He accused those around him of accusing him of illegal and immoral acts, including child sexual abuse.
By May 2023, his son and ex-wife reported his erratic behavior to local sheriff's deputies. By July, leaders of his reserve unit had alerted local police about a mass shooting threat by Card. He was involuntarily transferred to Keller Army Regional Hospital at West Point for psychological analysis and treatment. Two weeks later he was released.
Card then spent another two weeks at Four Winds Psychiatric Hospital in Katonah, New York, before returning home in August.
He continued to have fits of anger, including punching a fellow reservist who told him to stop talking about “shooting places and people.”
Lawyers at two Maine firms, one in Connecticut and one in Texas, salivating at collecting contingency fees in the millions, are under threat from this lawsuit. The government is optimistic that it will be forced to settle the case before it goes to trial.
precedent
Defendants in the anticipated lawsuits, such as the U.S. military, the Department of Defense, and government agencies such as Keller Army Regional Hospital, typically enjoy “sovereign immunity” from such lawsuits. However, as Jake Fogleman of The Reload says:
Decades of case law have established that government officials have no legal obligation to protect individuals from harm under nearly all circumstances.
But a series of recent settlements by government agencies has forced the four law firms to invest enormous amounts of time, energy, and money to detain, interview, and organize cases against 100 individual accusers. It became. The application is expected to be made after the government considers the group's tentative intention to apply.
Victims and survivors of the 2017 Sutherland Springs, Texas, church shooting have won a $144 million liability settlement from the Department of Justice. Victims and survivors of the 2015 Charleston, South Carolina, church shooting received $88 million. And victims and survivors of the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, received $127.5 million.
lawyers take a break
Lawyers can now take a breather after requests for information from relevant agencies are expected to take months. Cynthia Young, whose husband and son were murdered at a bowling alley last year, was appointed by Card's son as a “special administrator” of Robert Card's estate. This means your most sensitive documents, such as card medical records, mental health records, and military records, will be available sooner.
Young said:
These records will help those affected by this tragedy evaluate potential legal claims, including claims against the U.S. government. This information may also help families understand why mass shootings occur and what steps they could have taken to prevent them.
Travis Brennan, one of many attorneys representing survivors and victims' families, said:
In the year since the shooting, several investigations have been conducted and many facts have emerged that show the military could and should have taken action.
While we expect to learn more through the civil litigation, it is now abundantly clear that there were numerous opportunities to intervene to prevent the tragic events of October 25th.
The Army must have had a clue.
A sample of Robert Card's brain tissue was tested at Boston University's CTE Center. It revealed a “severe brain injury,” a traumatic brain injury similar to that experienced by veterans exposed to battlefield explosions. As a grenade instructor, Card would have been exposed to thousands of such explosions during the eight years he served in the reserves.
Anne McKee, CTE Center Director and Neurologist, said:
These findings are consistent with previous studies on the effects of blast injury in humans and experimental models. Although we cannot be certain that these pathological findings underlie Mr. Card's behavioral changes during the first 10 months of life, based on our previous research, it is possible that brain injury played a role in his symptoms. There is.
Benjamin Gideon, another lawyer who worked on the case, warned:
We are committed to pursuing this litigation as aggressively as the law allows. The United States needs to obtain sufficient information through the Army's own internal investigation to quickly assess our claims.
However, if the United States chooses to take no action and let time run out on our claims, we intend to file a lawsuit six months and one day from today.
We are committed to moving forward and ensuring accountability and justice for our clients.
And they get paid handsomely for doing so.
