AUSTIN — Camp Mystic and four related business entities filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy early Wednesday, automatically pausing five lawsuits stemming from the deaths of 27 people during last year’s Independence Day flooding at the Texas summer camp.
Camp Mystic LLC, Natural Fountains Properties Inc., Mystic Camps Family Partnership Ltd., and Mystic Camps Management LLC filed the petitions after facing lawsuits from relatives of the 25 campers and two counselors who died in the July 2025 flood.
Sarah Foss, global head of legal at DebtWire, said the bankruptcy filing triggered an automatic stay that temporarily halted the civil cases.
“Filing for bankruptcy means that all lawsuits against Camp Mystic … are temporarily paused by something called the automatic stay,” Foss said. She added that the bankruptcy court could lift the stay and allow the cases to continue in their original court while the bankruptcy proceedings are ongoing.
The lawsuits have been pending in Travis County since March.
Attorney Randy Howry, who represents the family of 8-year-old flood victim Eloise “Lulu” Peck, said the bankruptcy filing applies only to the entities that sought Chapter 11 protection.
“The individual members of the Eastland family who have been named as individual defendants did not file for bankruptcy. They still remain,” Howry said.
Foss said it is too early to determine how the bankruptcy will affect the lawsuits. She said plaintiffs could resume litigation after the bankruptcy case concludes, seek permission to continue the cases while the proceedings are pending, move the litigation to bankruptcy court or resolve claims through the bankruptcy process.
The filing came two weeks after Camp Mystic’s attorneys asked a Travis County judge to send the lawsuits to arbitration instead of allowing them to proceed in district court. Judge Maya Guerra Gamble had not yet ruled on that request or on pending sanctions motions before the bankruptcy filing.
Howry said he believes the timing of the filing was intended to prevent the court from ruling on those motions.
“If in fact we’re right about my hunch, then we’ll ask the court to consider a motion to dismiss based on the fact that the removal on bankruptcy is not appropriate,” he said.
Howry said he will continue representing the Peck family throughout the legal proceedings.
Attorneys representing the family of 8-year-old flood victim Cile Steward, whose body has not been recovered, criticized the bankruptcy filing in a joint statement.
“The timing, just before the one-year anniversary, is a despicable gut punch to families already bracing to grieve their daughters under a canopy of Fourth of July fireworks,” attorneys Brad Beckworth, Christina Yarnell and Blair Townsend said. “A bankruptcy may reorganize their debts. It cannot reorganize the truth.”
Attorney Kyle Findley, who represents six families who lost relatives in the flood, also criticized the filing.
“The bankruptcy filing is not accountability. It is simply a financial reorganization that could allow the same people and entities to remain in control of Camp Mystic while attempting to circumvent the justice of the Court,” Findley said.