AEG has been sued by a couple who were assaulted in the car park after attending an Elton John show at the Dodger Stadium in LA in November 2022. The owner of the venue, home to the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, is also named as a defendant in the lawsuit, as are the two men who allegedly assaulted the concert-goers, Reece Hopkin and Chad Reeves.
The victims of the assault, Jaime and Lillian Grenfell, argue that both AEG and the owners of the Dodger Stadium were aware of a number of similar incidents that had previously occurred in the venue’s car park, and that a lack of security guards, including LAPD-uniformed security personnel, were contributing factors.
“The lack of LAPD-uniformed security personnel diminished the safety and security of Dodger Stadium by creating a more relaxed atmosphere without the threat of immediate police intervention”, their lawsuit states. “This atmosphere emboldened wrongdoers at the stadium”. To that end, the Grenfells want AEG and the Dodger Stadium held liable for negligence.
The Grenfells attended a date on Elton John’s AEG promoted ‘Farewell Yellow Brick Road’ tour on 17 Nov 2022. They say that, after the show, they returned to their car. While “awaiting a break in the very heavy traffic exiting the parking area, their car was vandalised”, their lawsuit explains.
Jaime got out of his car to assess the extent and cause of the damage to his vehicle. Media reports at the time said that Jaime got into a verbal dispute with a woman, which is when Hopkin and Reeves intervened. Jaime was then “violently assaulted and beaten” by the two men.
Jaime collapsed as a result of the assault, after which “Hopkin and Reeves continued to punch, strike and kick his body, face and head multiple times”. Lillian got out of the car to help her husband, and she was also “beaten and thrown to the asphalt by the attackers”.
A bystander captured footage of the assault on their phone. Hopkin and Reeves allegedly grabbed that phone from the bystander and destroyed it, in a bid to destroy the evidence, however the video had already been uploaded to a cloud storage platform.
“No security guards or parking control guards were anywhere in the vicinity”, the lawsuit notes. This “not only emboldened Hopkin and Reeves” to attack the Grenfells, it adds, but “also caused delay in stopping the melee and further impeded emergency care”.
The lawsuit claims that, as a result of the attack and subsequent delays in getting emergency care, Jaime “suffered a severe brain injury, vertigo, torn retina, broken bones, contusions and other injuries”. Lillian suffered “a head injury, contusions and other injuries”.
The lawsuit also alleges that the owners of the Dodger Stadium cut back on venue security in the 2000s to save money, including ceasing to pay for LAPD-uniformed security personnel to operate on the premises. The venue, it claims, was “aware of several similar incidents of egregious criminal acts on the premises of Dodger Stadium that occurred after the elimination of LAPD-uniformed security guards”.
Hopkin and Reeves were both charged with a felony count of battery with serious bodily injury in April 2023. The lawsuit seeks to hold them liable for assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The claims against Hopkin and Reeves are more straightforward and will swing on the evidence. Whether the Grenfells can also hold AEG and the venue liable for negligence is less certain, and it will be interesting to see how those arguments progress should this lawsuit get to court.
