The first Astroworld trial won’t now get underway until February next year. Three bellwether cases were due to kick off in court this week, but everything has now been pushed back after Live Nation and Travis Scott settled more than 300 of the lawsuits filed by festival-goers who were injured during the 2021 Astroworld crowd surge, including two of the three bellwether cases.
Lawyer Scott West told the Houston Chronicle that the bulk of those 300 cases were settled in two deals, one on Friday and one earlier this month. No details were given in court regarding what payments Live Nation and Scott will have to make as part of those deals to the injured festival-goers involved in the lawsuits.
Although an overall ‘top line’ figure has been agreed, the specifics about how much each injured festival-goer will receive is still to be determined, with experts - known as ‘special masters’ - being appointed to do just that. “We may have somebody who's had double neck surgery and somebody who had a broken arm”, explained West, “All cases are not created equal”.
The rescheduling of the first trial means that Scott has now withdrawn a motion he filed with the appeals court seeking the urgent disclosure of information about settlement deals agreed by other defendants. His lawyers said this was needed to help inform his defence, but the move, which threatened to further delay the bellwether cases, was heavily criticised by the festival-goers involved in those lawsuits.
The push back to February also means that Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino has more time to arrange the deposition that he was ordered to give by the Texas Supreme Court in a ruling last week.
Hundreds of lawsuits were filed in the wake of the Astroworld tragedy, which saw ten people die and hundreds more injured in a crowd surge that occurred during Scott’s headline set at the Live Nation promoted festival he founded. Litigation involving the families of those who died was all settled by May, but hundreds of injury lawsuits have continued to work their way through the legal process.
Six so called ‘bellwether cases’ were initially identified to go to trial first, the outcome of which would inform the direction the other lawsuits might take. In the end only three of the bellwether cases were due to get underway this week, involving Angel Dominguez, Elizabeth Martinez and Henry Nguyen.
Two of those were among the 300+ settlements and, according to a filing from Scott’s team, the third has been “reset for trial”, meaning it is no longer going ahead this week as originally planned.
Although the settlement of more than 300 lawsuits is significant, there is still plenty of litigation pending. Lawyers working for the injured festival-goers now need to identify alternative bellwether cases. Those cases will then go to trial next February - assuming there is not another raft of settlements before that date comes round.
That provides plenty of time for Rapino to give his deposition answering questions under oath about events leading up to and following the Astroworld tragedy. The live giant was desperate to avoid Rapino having to give a deposition, but the Texas Supreme Court recently rejected Live Nation’s arguments, with the result that Rapino had no option but to go ahead with a deposition.
It’s not yet clear when that deposition will happen, and with this recent raft of settlements it may be that Live Nation is hoping it can ultimately settle all the lawsuits and avoid having Rapino’s role in Live Nation’s dealings with Scott scrutinised.