Personal Injury Claims & Casinos

Games Casinos Play In Defending Against Suits Brought Against Them

The vast majority of personal injury claims are brought by out of state visitors. Personal injury claims of a probable value of not more than $50,000 must first go through the mandatory non-binding arbitration program. The casino will usually demand that the plaintiff appear in Las Vegas before the arbitration hearing for an in person deposition or be present in person at the arbitration. Most arbitrators grant those requests, although there are good reasons why they should not. Then if the arbitration does not resolve the case and it goes to regular trial, the plaintiff will have to return to Nevada a second time. Casinos know this can be an expensive dollar and time burden for the plaintiff and may refuse to settle a case in the hopes the plaintiff will give up.

Casinos as a general rule will never provide security video of an incident until after the plaintiff has filed suit and subpoenaed the video. The casinos are hoping that the plaintiff and their attorney will not want to go the expense of filing suit not knowing if the security video helps their case. Also, casinos (and most other defendants) will demand a non-resident cost bond when an out of state person files a lawsuit. The plaintiff's lawyer can usually buy such a bond for about $100, but this is just another tactic to make it more expensive to file suit and to enable casinos to refuse to settle very small personal injury claims because the cost of actually filing a lawsuit over them makes them not worthwhile.