Gunman James Holmes in court where a jury on July 16, 2015, found him guilty of murder. Credit:AP He urged the plaintiffs to settle with Cinemark, owner of the multiplex. They had 24 hours. But before that deadline, the settlement collapsed and four survivors of the massacre were ordered to pay the theatre more than $US700,000 ($930,000). The Los Angeles Times corroborated this account with four parties who were present at the settlement conference but declined to be identified because the negotiations were private. A separate set of survivors had just suffered a devastating defeat in a Colorado state court, where a jury of six decided in May this year that Cinemark could not have foreseen the events of the fatal night.

A SWAT team officer stands watch near James Holmes' flat. Credit:AP The survivors, some of whom had two or three attorneys, were told that the state case had decided the issue - Cinemark was not liable for the shooting. US District Judge R. Brooke Jackson, who oversaw the federal case, was about to issue an order saying as much. The federal lawsuit was effectively over. Investigators remove computer equipment as evidence from the apartment of gunman James Holmes after the massacre. Credit:AP But Judge Jackson wanted the survivors and Cinemark to end the case with a settlement. It was 8am on June 23. For the next eight hours, attorneys for both sides inched closer to a deal.

At 4pm, Cinemark's attorneys presented a settlement offer. Before it was read, a federal magistrate cornered Mr Weaver. He asked Mr Weaver to remember the slow pace of change in the civil rights movement, and told him that changing theatre safety would also be slow. Police outside the Century Aurora 16 multiplex after a mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado on July 20, 2012. Credit:AP "It was the biggest smack in the face," Mr Weaver said. "He was basically telling us: 'You're right, they're basically at fault, but there's justice and then there's true justice.' " It wasn't a good deal, Mr Weaver thought: $US150,000 split among the 41 plaintiffs. "That's it?" Mr Weaver asked his attorney, Phil Hardman.

"That's it," Mr Hardman replied. But the settlement would achieve the one thing Mr Weaver had been pushing for: an acknowledgment that the theatre chain would take new measures to protect patrons. Still, something was worrying him. "It was the 12th hour, we were all feeling the same way. We all knew they were liable. We knew they were at fault," Mr Weaver said. "[The settlement] was a slap in the face. But I said, 'Let's go for it because it's better than nothing.' " The deal came with an implied threat: If the survivors rejected the deal, moved forward with their case and lost, under Colorado law they would be responsible for the astronomical court fees accumulated by Cinemark.

The choice for the survivors was clear, Mr Weaver said. "Either seek justice and go into debt, or take that pitiful offering of money and the improved public safety," he said. The plaintiffs and their attorneys all seemed to agree. They decided on a split of $US30,000 each to the three most critically injured survivors. The remaining 38 plaintiffs would share the remaining $US60,000 equally. Cinemark's attorneys drafted a news release to distribute the next day. Then one plaintiff rejected the deal.

The plaintiff, who had been gravely wounded in the shooting, wanted more money than the proposed share of the settlement. The Los Angeles Times did not name the plaintiff because the plaintiff could not be reached for comment. The eight hours they had spent negotiating the deal, the weeks of the failed state court trial, the four years of anger at the theatre since the shooting - all of it was for nothing. "It was done then," Mr Weaver said. He removed himself as a plaintiff immediately. So did 36 other people. Four plaintiffs remained on the case the next day, June 24, when Judge Jackson handed down the order that Cinemark was not liable for the damages. The court costs in the state case were $US699,000.

"A blind guy in a dark alley could have seen [the state verdict] coming," Mr Hardman said. Several plaintiffs and attorneys, including those who would not comment on the settlement negotiations, expressed frustration at the way the state case was handled. In that case, New York attorney Marc Bern, who represented 27 people, paid one expert $US22,000 to testify. Cinemark paid five experts $US500,000 to testify. Most damaging to their case, the state plaintiffs were not permitted to enter a crucial piece of evidence before the jury - a warning from the Department of Homeland Security in May 2012 to theatre chains nationwide concerning the potential for a mass-casualty attack on a theatre. "You've got this guy from New York representing people in Colorado who were probably misguided, to be honest," Mr Weaver said.

The case put forward in the state court was so weak, the federal plaintiffs felt, that a rumour circulated among them that the case was a set-up by Cinemark, designed to fail. "That's ridiculous," said Mr Bern, who is known for representing rescue workers from the attacks of September 11, 2001. "We had all the resources possible. The only expert we needed was a security expert." In August 2015, Holmes was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, avoiding the death penalty. Mr Weaver, 45, has married and had a child since the shooting, a blue-eyed girl named Maggie. He still goes to therapy, which he said has helped him. However, the way the case ended will never leave him.

"Theatres aren't any safer," Mr Weaver said. "It's almost like everything was for naught." Los Angeles Times