A new legal reckoning of the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting begins Monday, one that’s poised to put America’s climate of mass shootings on trial.

In an Arapahoe County courtroom, 28 survivors of the attack and relatives of the victims will attempt to convince a jury that Cinemark, the movie theater’s owner, should be held accountable for the shooting.

The trial will take place in the same courtroom where the gunman last year was convicted of murder and sentenced to a lifetime in prison. But, while the criminal trial focused on questions of mental health and motive, the first civil trial over the shooting will ask jurors to weigh the foreseeability of such attacks in an era where they are both statistically rare and terrifyingly routine.

In other words, are mass shootings in public places now so common that a movie theater chain can be held liable for not guarding against them?

“Our belief,” said Ken Citron, one of the lawyers for the victims, “is that Cinemark had inadequate security measures to guard against a foreseeable danger. And, had they implemented proper security measures, this act would have never happened and our clients would have never been injured.”

Twelve people were killed in the shooting and another 70 people were wounded, some with life-altering injuries that left them paralyzed or permanently disabled. But those injuries are not in dispute during the civil case, meaning the trial that begins Monday will not see the same kind of wrenchingly emotional testimony that punctuated the criminal case.

Instead, the testimony is expected to focus on the days and months prior to the shooting, when killer James Holmes carefully cased the theater and when Citron and other plaintiffs’ lawyers contend Cinemark’s corporate headquarters received broad warning from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that movie theaters might be targeted by terrorists.

Cinemark never shared that warning with its theater managers, the victims’ lawyers say. On the night of the shooting, the Century Aurora 16 theater had no extra security on hand, no surveillance-camera coverage for large areas behind the theater where Holmes prepared, and no alarm on the exit door through which he entered and began shooting.

But does that make them liable for the tragedy?

In court filings, Cinemark describes Holmes as “both highly motivated and heavily armed.” The company is expected to argue that no security measures could have stopped him and that no one could have foreseen such horror. There had never been a mass shooting at a movie theater prior to the July 20, 2012, attack on the Century Aurora 16, Cinemark noted in a court document.

Legal history supports Cinemark’s case. After a 1984 attack on a San Ysidro, Calif., McDonald’s, courts ruled that the victims couldn’t sue the restaurant chain over a “once-in-a-lifetime” massacre.

But, three decades later, the nation is a different place, something a federal judge in Denver acknowledged in 2014 when he rejected a Cinemark bid to dismiss a lawsuit against the company in federal court filed by a different group of theater shooting victims. That case is currently scheduled for trial in July.

“[W]hat was ‘so unlikely to occur within the setting of modern life’ as to be unforeseeable in 1984 was not necessarily so unlikely by 2012,” U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson wrote.

How jurors decide this question of mass shooting predictability could cause broad ripples through American businesses. As three liability experts explained last year in the legal trade journal For The Defense, many states require companies to act when they know of even a general risk to patrons. Thus, a verdict against Cinemark could put companies on notice to guard against mass shootings.

“If a premises owner has reason to anticipate a criminal act, even in the absence of prior criminal incidents, it has a duty to exercise ordinary care in its response to knowledge of the potential criminal act,” the experts wrote.

Opening statements in the trial are expected Monday afternoon. The trial is scheduled to last up to three weeks.

John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or @johningold