As Stampede Suits Rise, a Legal Morass Awaits

With lawsuits amassing after Monday’s nightclub stampede here that killed 21 people, the victims’ families are likely to find themselves in an eerie legal landscape where attorneys place dollar values on human life and defendants typically serve no jail time.

The outcome, similar cases suggest, is likely to revolve less around allegations of criminal wrongdoing than around insurance money. And those involved in past cases warn the grieving families that, regardless of how the cases end, the proceedings are not likely to feel like testaments to justice.

“It becomes a convoluted mathematical test of statistics, logic, speculation and whatever else you want to throw in,” said attorney Paul Bleifer, who represented the families of 17 victims of the 1990 arson fire at New York’s Happy Land Social Club that killed 87 people.

That case had dragged on for more than five years when Bleifer and a panel of other attorneys decided to settle with the owner of the building for $15.8 million, which valued each of the dead at roughly $163,000.

The owner of the Bronx building that housed Happy Land and the primary leaseholder both pleaded guilty to charges that they hadn’t installed a sprinkler system and were sentenced to 50 hours of community service. The owner also was fined $150,000 to go toward the construction of a community center, the leaseholder $60,000.

“There’s really no end, and there’s no winner,” Bleifer said. “Money can never get you justice.”

By late Wednesday, attorneys representing the families of at least eight who died and one woman who claimed she was injured had filed lawsuits naming various parties, including the corporate owner of the club, the principal partners in the corporation, a separate company that owns the property, an event promoter and the city of Chicago.

City officials scrambled throughout the day to deflect any suggestion of lax oversight, with top city attorney Mara Georges blaming the owners -- who the city alleges opened the second floor dance club in violation of court orders -- and the security guards, who triggered the deadly exodus when they fired pepper spray to break up a fight.

The city claims the owners of the Epitome restaurant and its upstairs nightclub, E2, were under court orders not to use the second floor dance area. Attorneys for the owners say they had made an agreement with building officials that allowed them to use the second floor so long as they closed off adjacent VIP lounges. Court documents in the case include two orders to shut down the second floor, but also another document that says only the VIP areas were to be closed.

On Tuesday, the city asked U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel Lynch to jail club owner Dwain Kyles, 48, for allegedly violating the court orders. Lynch declined, but said he would reconsider next week whether the city served Kyles with legal papers notifying him of its intent. On Wednesday, officials moved to revoke the operating licenses of the club. The owners closed the restaurant and the nightclub immediately following the deaths.

Kyles, a lawyer, saw the scene of the disaster for the first time Wednesday.

“I have not spoken out because I can’t get through this,” an emotional Kyles said outside the club. “I am a parent. I have children of my own. I am very close to my family. I am very close to the families of the managers and employees that we have here.”

Kyles started sobbing and walked to his car.

“I’m sure there are a lot of civil lawyers who are out there and going to try and take him for every cent he’s got,” said his attorney, Tom Royce.

As city officials pointed fingers at Kyles, as well as business partner Calvin Hollins and security guards, they faced tough questions of their own, including why, if indeed the owners were violating court orders, officials did not close the popular club. Located on South Michigan Avenue, the city’s main thoroughfare, the club drew large crowds, about 500 the night of the disaster.

The 21 people died and dozens were injured in a stampede after private security guards discharged pepper spray in the crowded dance hall to break up a fight. Panicked party-goers were crushed and suffocated as they fled down a single stairwell leading to the front door.

An examination of similar cases in which people were killed in packed clubs or crushed by surging crowds reveals that the legal proceedings tend to play out around civil liability questions rather than criminal charges.

“These cases become about money, a limited amount of money,” said New York attorney Susan Karten, who also worked on the Happy Land case. “You have a formula: so much if it was a single person, so much if it was a single person who was working, so much if it was a parent. You are forced to put a value on each person’s life.”

One of the most infamous stampedes occurred in Cincinnati in 1979 at a concert by the British rock band the Who. Eleven people were trampled to death when the doors to Riverfront Coliseum were opened and the crowd waiting outside scrambled to get as close as possible to the stage.

The disaster prompted many concert halls in the country to cancel or limit “festival seating,” where the first person to a seat claims it, and caused insurance companies to dramatically raise their premiums for such events. The legal proceedings, however, were civil matters, long, arduous searches for compensation by the families of the dead.

Dozens of lawsuits sought damages from the band, the city, the coliseum, even members of the coliseum board. But none of those named in the suits faced criminal charges.

In 1983, families for 10 of the victims settled with three insurance companies for $2.1 million. The precise compensation to each family was sealed by the judge, but the average was about $150,000. The family of the 11th victim settled a separate lawsuit for an undisclosed sum.

The case of a 1991 concert and celebrity basketball game at the City College of New York, where nine people died during a walkway stampede, ended similarly. Most of the victims’ families divided a $3.2-million settlement in 1999. No criminal charges were filed against the main organizers, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and Dwight “Heavy D” Myers.

“It’s very difficult to prove criminal intent,” said Bleifer. “You might expect something bad to happen if you spray pepper spray in a crowded room, but is doing so criminal? What should be the liability of the landlord, the manager, the property owner?

“In the Happy Land case,” he added, “about the only thing we could prove was these people were there -- and they died.”