They deliberated for about three hours.
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A Colorado jury on Thursday found no liability on the part of a movie theater owner in a lawsuit over a shooting massacre at an Aurora premiere of the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.
During the trial, Cinemark’s attorneys argued it would be unfair to hold the company liable for a mass shooting because there’s no way it could have predicted an attack from a gunman as heavily armed as James Holmes.
Bern says that in an age of mass shootings, the nation’s third-largest theater chain should have been able to foresee the possibility of violence at a summer blockbuster that was expected to draw more than 1,000 people.
Jurors ruled in favor of Cinemark USA Inc in the lawsuit filed by more than two dozen surviving victims of the shooting and relatives of the dead, court spokesman Rob McCallum said on Twitter.
Taylor acknowledges there were no armed guards at the theater, but he says the company never had problems at other movie premieres.
They also claimed that a silent alarm should have been activated when Holmes slipped into the auditorium through an emergency exit and opened fire.
Attorneys for Cinemark, however, argued during the trial that the company could not have foreseen the assault and that the blame for the killings rested with Holmes.
He says it will be harder to find jurors who haven’t heard about the outcome of the first case.
They described Holmes as “unstoppable”.
Marc Bern, an attorney for the victims who sued the theater, said he would ask a judge to set aside the verdict while his clients appeal.
Jurors have reached a verdict in the civil trial over whether the owner of a Colorado movie theater should have done more to prevent a 2012 shooting that left 12 people dead.
James Holmes is serving a life sentence for the attack, which also left more than 70 others injured.
Taylor told jurors that it was the first mass shooting at a theater “in the history of American cinema”, saying such shootings are still so rare that management could not have anticipated one at a theater with no history of serious violence.
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The victims say Cinemark’s lax security allowed for the rampage.
