OAN’s Abril Elfi
10:06 AM – Wednesday, May 8, 2024
Nine out of the 10 wrongful death suits filed after a deadly crowd surge took place at the Astroworld music festival have been settled.
An attorney said on Wednesday that almost all the lawsuits regarding the fatal 2021 festival have been settled, including one that was set to go to trial this week.
The wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of 23-year-old Madison Dubiski, who was one of ten people killed in the crowd crush at rapper Travis Scott’s concert on November 5th, 2021, was scheduled to start jury selection on Tuesday.
However, during a court hearing on Wednesday, Neal Manne, an attorney for Live Nation, the festival’s promoter and one of the parties being sued, alongside Scott, stated that nine wrongful death lawsuits, including the one brought by Dubiski’s family, had already been settled.
Noah Wexler, an attorney for Dubiski’s family, confirmed during the court hearing that their case “is resolved in its entirety.”
The family of Ezra Blount, 9, who was the youngest person killed during the concert, filed the only wrongful death lawsuit that is currently pending. Next week, the lawyers involved in the case were scheduled to convene and decide when Blount’s family’s lawsuit could go to trial.
“This case is ready for trial,” Scott West, an attorney for Blount’s family, said in court.
At the hearing next week, State District Judge Kristen Hawkins said that she would discuss Blount’s case as well as possible trials pertaining to the thousands of injury cases that were filed following the fatal concert.
According to Hawkins, she is inclined to schedule the Blount family’s lawsuit at the next trial rather than an injury case if it is not settled.
Following the concert, hundreds of lawsuits that were filed by more than 4,000 plaintiffs, 2,400 injury cases, were still pending.
Apple Inc., one of the more than 20 defendants in the lawsuit filed by Dubiski’s family and the provider of the livestream of Scott’s concert, had appealed a decision from the court that turned down its request to be removed from the case. Apple was given a stay of litigation by an appeals court.
Attorneys representing Dubiski’s family reached a settlement with all of the defendants in the case, including Apple, Scott, and Live Nation, in the days following the trial.
In court documents, attorneys for Dubiski’s family and the other plaintiffs have claimed that careless planning, lack of safety, and a disregard for the event’s capacity were to blame for the concert-goers’ deaths as well as hundreds of injuries.
The victims, who were between the ages of 9 and 27, died from compression asphyxia, which one medical professional in court compared to the feeling of “being run over by a car.”
Meanwhile, these allegations have been refuted by Scott, Live Nation, and the other sued parties, who assert that their top priority is safety at the massive events. They claimed that it was impossible to predict what would happen.
Last year, a grand jury rejected to indict Scott and five other festival participants following a police investigation.
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