The legal fallout from the deadly building collapse in Surfside, Florida, is already underway.
It includes at least five lawsuits and a planned grand jury investigation.
The litigation comes even as rescuers remain at the site hoping to find survivors. Twenty-eight people have been found dead and more than 117 residents are thought to still be missing.
Chapman University law professor Denis Binder studies wide-scale disasters and says they are increasingly leading to criminal negligence charges.
He believes the harrowing images people see in real-time through the media feed a need to seek answers about the tragedy and assess blame.