Kevin Boyle

Boyle is a founding partner of the firm that opened its doors in 2005 to focus on large, high-profile plaintiff cases. His specialty is in representing people who have been severely wronged by powerful entities, holding the defendants financially responsible and forcing them to change their ways, he said.

His current clients include the families of deceased passengers in the Kobe Bryant helicopter crash and alleged victims of a faulty anti-malarial drug used by the U.S. military.

In October 2020 a state judge in Nevada approved an $800 million settlement for 4,000 victims, including family members, of the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival shooting in Las Vegas. Boyle was one of three attorneys on the litigation leadership group that achieved the deal with the defendant owner of the hotel from which the gunman fired on the crowd below. Sheppard v. Mandalay Bay LLC, A-18-769752-C (8th Jud. Dist., Clark Co., Nev., filed Feb. 16, 2018).

The settlement approval came on the third anniversary of the sniper attack, the deadliest mass shooting by a lone individual in modern U.S. history. Sixty died and 411 were injured.

Boyle said it was the first such settlement for a mass shooting in the U.S. The litigation was possible because under Nevada case law if there is a shooter and a negligent party contributing to the event, the fault is not split when the shooter is not a defendant. “We were careful not to name the shooter’s estate,” Boyle said. “That was a driving factor that enabled the plaintiffs to gain a foothold.”

Even so, the hotel and its parent, MGM Resorts International, had a potential defense in the never-litigated Safety Act of 2002, a post-9/11 law that shields companies from liability if federally-certified security technology is in place to protect against mass injury. “At first, they were convinced the law would wipe out the case,” Boyle said. But the defendants settled before the law’s applicability was tested, possibly concluding that to lose that ploy would amplify their exposure.

“The 4,000 victims got a great monetary result, and we’re now in the process of getting everyone paid,” Boyle said.

In other recent wins, Boyle obtained via settlement $6 million for a woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury when her vehicle was rear-ended by a city bus. Watkins v. Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, BC704890 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed May 4, 2018).

And he settled for $4 million claims by a woman who suffered catastrophic injuries after driving into a sinkhole that suddenly opened on the road, causing her vehicle to fall 20 feet and land upside down in raw sewage. Scott v. City of Los Angeles, BC675020 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 7, 2017).

“These are two government liability cases where you’d hope the government would fix the problems,” Boyle said.

— John Roemer