Washington [US], February 2 (ANI): The hundreds of Astroworld lawsuits filed against rapper Travis Scott and Live Nation due to the music festival that left 10 individuals dead and hundreds injured in November, will now be handled as one case.
According to People magazine, a motion was granted by the Texas Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation on January 26 for nearly 400 lawsuits, filed by organizers and victims, to combine litigation for a single judge. Nearly 2,800 victims will be represented by the lawsuit. The plaintiffs will be seeking billions in damages and alleging negligence in the planning and managing of the music festival.
An entertainment magazine has reported that the move was agreed upon by both sides. This process will allow a single judge to be “efficient” in pre-trial procedures and could make it easier to negotiate a single settlement to resolve all of the cases.
The name of the Texas state judge who will handle this case is yet to be made public. According to the outlet, in the joint filing, both sides requested Judge Lauren Reeder, though it is unclear why.
The House Oversight Committee had announced on December 22 that it would launch a bipartisan probe into what led to the deaths of 10 Astroworld attendees after sending Michael Rapino, CEO of LiveNation, a letter informing him of the investigation. Live Nation has since stated it will cooperate with the said investigation.
The letter read, “Concert attendees have provided firsthand accounts of being crushed within the crowd as it surged towards the stage. Live Nation Entertainment (Live Nation) was the concert promoter reportedly responsible for ‘planning, staffing, putting up money, securing permits, finding vendors, communicating with local agencies,’ for Astroworld Festival.”
It had references to reports that “raise serious concerns” about whether the company “took adequate steps” to keep the crowd safe.
The letter also referred to reports that despite the fact that law enforcement began responding to a “mass casualty event” at 9:38 p.m., the concert didn’t end until 10:10 p.m.
On December 9, Scott had explained, during a sit-down with Charlamagne Tha God for his first interview since the music festival, that he didn’t hear any screams for help when the crowd surge began.
He said, “Anytime you can hear something like that, you want to stop the show, you want to make sure fans get the proper attention they need. And anytime I could see anything like that, I did. I stopped it like a couple of times to just make sure everybody was okay. I really just go off of the fans’ energy as a collective and I just didn’t hear that.”
“It’s 50,000 people … you got lights, you got sound, you got [pyrotechnics], you got your in-ears, you got the band, there are all types of stuff going on. Everything kind of just sounds the same. At the end of the day, you just hear music,” he continued.
Scott had issued his first legal response to 11 of the lawsuits that named him as a defendant, a few days before.
The rapper and his company, in the filings, “generally deny the allegations” made in the lawsuits, and “respectfully request that the claims against these Defendants be dismissed with prejudice and that these Defendants be granted such other and further relief, both at law and in equity, to which they are entitled,” the response read, as per People magazine.
