Attendee at Batman Shooting Plans to Sue Warner Bros for Making Batman Too Violent
27th July 2012
You knew it had to happen.
We live in a litigious society. That’s not a secret. So it’s no surprise that, in the aftermath of the Aurora, Colorado Batman shootings, lawsuits will be filed. But as always the question is: who do you sue? Well, if the linked TMZ article is accurate, Torrence Brown Jr., who was in the theater, but not directly injured (though a friend of his was killed), has lawyered up, hiring an attorney named Donald Karpel to sue Warner Bros. for making the movie too violent. He’s also apparently planning to sue the theater for not properly guarding the emergency exit, which is apparently where Holmes left and re-entered with the weapons. Oh yeah, and the doctors of shooter James Holmes for not properly monitoring him.
Actually, I’d be inclined to sue the theater for making it a ‘gun free zone’. But that’s me. And I suppose that the theater doesn’t have pockets deep enough to make a really fat target.
This certainly seems like a frivolous lawsuit. Going after Warner Bros.? For what? That’s likely to get laughed out of court. This seems like a clear case of a “Steve Dallas lawsuit,” named for the famous Bloom County comic strip in which lawyer Steve Dallas gets beat up by Sean Penn after trying to take a photograph of the star. He then explains why the proper target of a lawsuit is not Sean Penn, but the “Nikolta Camera” company, because “a major corporation with gobs of liquid cash … was criminally negligent in not putting stickers on their camera which read, ‘warning: physical injury may result from photographing psychopathic Hollywood hotheads.”
Since Mr Brown is a Person of Color and the shooter was a Person of Pallor, I’m astonished that he didn’t add a layer of alleged racism to his suit. (Hey, there’s still time to add it later. When the Crust keeps telling you you’re a victim, you tend to believe them and see oppressors everywhere.)
The good news is that Warner Brothers can afford some pretty fancypants lawyers, certainly better than anybody Mr Brown might engage. The bad news is that I’m sure Mr Brown’s lawyer is counting (probably accurately) on Warner Bros. being willing to pay them a substantial-but-to-a-megacorp-trivial sum to go away.
No doubt some future high school guidance counselor will include among his recommended career plans ‘attend a public function that is shot up by some deranged wacko and then sue everyone in the same ZIP code’. It’s certainly more likely than hitting the big time in professional sports, and life in the ge-hetto doesn’t offer a lot of options in the Obama Economy.