The owner of the Aurora movie theater that was the site of a deadly 2012 attack could have reasonably enough foreseen the danger of such an attack to be held liable for it, a federal judge ruled Friday.

Noting “the grim history of mass shootings and mass killings that have occurred in more recent times,” U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson ruled that Cinemark — owner of the Century Aurora 16 theater — could have predicted that movie patrons might be targeted for an attack. Jackson’s ruling allows 20 lawsuits filed by survivors of the attack or relatives of those killed to proceed toward trial.

“Although theaters had theretofore been spared a mass shooting incident, the patrons of a movie theater are, perhaps even more than students in a school or shoppers in a mall, ‘sitting ducks,’ ” Jackson wrote.

Jackson’s ruling does not decide the lawsuits’ ultimate question: Did Cinemark do enough to try to prevent the shooting? The lawsuits argue Cinemark should have had extra security measures in place to discourage the attack and to stop it more quickly once it began.

Instead, Jackson’s ruling denies what is known as a “motion for summary judgment” filed by Cinemark. Similar to a previously denied motion, the theater chain had argued that the lawsuits should be dismissed because the attack was “legally unforeseeable.”

The trial is set for February.

John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/john_ingold