Trial for final wrongful death suit in Astroworld concert crowd crush is set for September
HOUSTON– The only remaining wrongful death lawsuit, filed after 10 people were killed during a deadly mob crash at the 2021 Astroworld music festival, will go to trial in civil court in September, a judge said Tuesday.
State District Judge Kristen Hawkins has scheduled jury selection to begin Sept. 10 in the lawsuit filed by the family of 9-year-old Ezra Blount, the youngest person killed at rap superstar Travis Scott’s concert.
If the lawsuit filed by Blount’s family goes to trial, it would be the first civil case arising from the deadly concert to go before a jury.
Blount’s family is suing Scott, Live Nation, the festival’s promoter and the world’s largest live entertainment company, and other companies and individuals involved in the event, including Apple Inc., which livestreamed the concert.
During a court hearing Tuesday, attorneys for Blount’s family had asked Hawkins if the trial could take place earlier. But Hawkins said several legal and logistical issues made it unlikely the case could be heard before September.
Scott West, one of the attorneys for Blount’s family, told Hawkins that they still plan to depose Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino before trial.
Lawyers for Live Nation have made efforts to have Rapino questioned about what he knew about the festival, arguing that he had no unique knowledge about the event. But plaintiffs’ attorneys have argued that Rapino played a hands-on role in booking Scott for the festival, was focused on ticket sales and capacity and also sent an email hours after the deadly concert saying that “if there were five died, we would cancel the second day.” of the festival. The second day was later canceled.
Neal Manne, an attorney for Live Nation, said he hopes an agreement can be reached on Rapino’s statement, but he could still appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.
The lawsuit filed by Blount’s family is one of 10 civil wrongful death lawsuits filed after the deadly concert.
Last week, attorneys had announced that the remaining nine wrongful death lawsuits had been settled. The terms of the settlements were confidential. Lawyers in the case are limited in what they can say outside of court hearings due to a silence order in the case.
The wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of 23-year-old Houston resident Madison Dubiski was set to go to trial last week. But it was settled before jury selection began.
About 2,400 injury cases remain filed after the deadly concert. More than 4,000 plaintiffs had filed hundreds of lawsuits after the mass crush at Astroworld.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Hawkins scheduled the first trial related to the injury cases for Oct. 15. That process will focus on seven injury cases.
“There will be varying degrees of injuries,” West said of the lawsuit regarding the injury cases.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs have alleged in lawsuits that the deaths and hundreds of injuries at the concert were caused by negligent planning and a lack of concern for the capacity and safety of the event.
The dead ranged in age from 9 to 27 years old. They died of compression asphyxiation, which one expert compared to being crushed by a car.
Scott, Live Nation and the others sued have denied these claims, saying safety was their main concern. They said what happened was unforeseeable.
After a police investigation, a grand jury last year declined to indict Scott, along with five others associated with the festival.
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