Route 91 Harvest Festival Shooting: $800 Million Settlement With MGM Resorts

On October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire from a 32nd-floor suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, aiming down at the crowd of about 22,000 people gathered for the Route 91 Harvest country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip. He had carried an arsenal of rifles into the hotel over several days. The attack killed 58 people and injured more than 850, the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in modern U.S. history.

More than 4,400 victims and family members eventually joined the litigation that followed. They came from California, Nevada, and at least eight other states. Their claims named MGM Resorts International, which owned both the hotel and the festival grounds, arguing that the company failed to provide adequate security and failed to detect the weapons stockpiled in the suite.

Kevin Boyle, then a partner at the firm, served as one of three plaintiffs' co-lead counsel, working alongside lead counsel Robert Eglet and co-lead Mark Robinson Jr. The plaintiffs faced an unusual defense: MGM had filed suits in federal court arguing that the SAFETY Act, a 2002 federal anti-terrorism law, should bar or limit the claims because the festival's security vendor held a Department of Homeland Security certification. The legal teams consolidated hundreds of separate cases and pressed toward a single resolution rather than years of fragmented trials and appeals.

In October 2019, the parties announced a settlement valued between $735 million and $800 million, with the final figure tied to how many victims chose to take part. MGM did not admit liability. The company paid $49 million directly, and its insurers funded the remaining $751 million, bringing the total to $800 million.

Clark County District Court Judge Linda Bell approved the settlement in 2020, citing near-unanimous participation among potential claimants. Two retired judges, Jennifer Togliatti in Nevada and Louis Meisinger in California, oversaw how the money was divided. The claims administrator, BrownGreer, weighed each person's injuries, age, dependents, medical needs, and capacity to work before setting individual awards.

By 2021, the funds had been distributed. "All of our clients have received their money," Eglet said.