Festival claims now top $3 billion
Three weeks after 10 people died and hundreds of others were injured at the Astroworld Festival tragedy, the number of lawsuits, plaintiffs and named defendants continues to mount. The claims for damages now top $3 billion and the lawyer headcount exceeds six dozen, including some of the most prominent law firms in Texas.
Meanwhile, the attorneys representing the victims have told their clients to reject the offer by rapper Travis Scott, whose legal name is Jacques Bermon Webster II, to pay for funeral costs and medical expenses.
Lawyers also say they are eager to learn just how much Scott, the concert promoter Live Nation, the operators of the NRG Stadium property and other named defendants have in insurance coverage. Some lawyers, though, worry that recent lawsuits seeking incredibly high damage awards — up to $2 billion — could drive some corporate defendants into bankruptcy, which would mean significantly less money for victims.
The newest attorneys to the litigation are prominent Houston trial lawyer Richard Mithoff, who filed a complaint late Wednesday on behalf of a 14-year-old who died at the concert, and the high-powered Houston law firm Susman Godfrey, which was hired this week by Live Nation to represent the concert promoter in the 150 or so lawsuits pending against it.
“Susman Godfrey is one of the best trial law firms in the U.S., with incredibly smart and talented lawyers,” said Chad Pinkerton, a Houston lawyer who represents about 75 victims in the Astroworld cases. “For Live Nation to hire the Susman firm shows that the company knows it is in deep trouble and is preparing for a bet-the-company litigation fight.”
Officials at Live Nation did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Susman Godfrey has about 120 lawyers who specialize in highstakes, bet-the-company litigation. Its law partners represent large corporate clients such as CenterPoint Energy and Walmart and charge hourly rates of $1,300 or more — though the firm is usually paid through alternative fee arrangements contingent on success.
ASM Global, which manages NRG Stadium for the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp., has hired Norton Rose Fulbright as its defense counsel in the Astroworld litigation.
While Live Nation and Scott have received nearly all the atten
tion, the 150 lawsuits name another 15 businesses and individuals as defendants, including Texas-based concert promoters, public relations firms that worked on the Astroworld Festival, and companies hired to provide private security and first aid. The most recent lawsuits have included Apple, which streamed the concert around the world.
Likely defense
All the defendants need to hire legal counsel before the second week of December, when they are required to file their initial legal answers to the complaints against them.
“The defenses that these companies will employ are very predictable,” Mithoff said Thursday. “They will claim that the tragedy was not foreseeable, that they hired experts to tell them the number of people who should be allowed to attend and the number of security guards who should be hired and none of those experts gave them a warning that this could happen.”
Mithoff and others predict that some defendants will try to assign blame to the crowd at the concert, as well as alcohol and drugs, as contributing factors.
“Blaming the crowd may seem like a natural defense, but it is highly risky and could definitely backfire if the cases go all the way to a jury,” said Houston attorney Randy Sorrels, a former Texas Bar Association president.
“The defendants also have to decide very early in the litigation whether they will work together with each other in a joint defense agreement or if some of them decide if it is in their best interest to point the finger at other defendants who they think are more to blame,” Sorrels said. “Either way, there are a lot of Houston lawyers who are going to get a lot of billable hours in the next few months.”
From many, one
A major issue to be addressed in the next few weeks is the process for moving the cases forward. The more than 150 lawsuits have been randomly assigned to more than a dozen different Harris County judges.
Legal experts predict that the Astroworld lawsuits will be consolidated into one court for case management purposes before the end of December. For example, the Texas Supreme Court recently appointed former Harris County District Judge Sylvia Matthews to oversee most of the lawsuits involving injuries and damages that resulted from the power failures caused by the winter storm in February.
Fourteen different law firms representing more than 600 people who claim they were injured at the Astroworld Festival have filed lawsuits in Houston. All the lawsuits accuse Live Nation, Scott and other defendants of gross negligence and premises liability.
The big issue, according to Potts and others, is the amount of liability insurance each defendant has.
Pinkerton, who faced off in court against Live Nation in 2017 over the shooting at MGM Resort in Las Vegas that killed 60 people at the outdoor concert, estimates that Live Nation has about $200 million in general insurance coverage and another $100 million in premise’s liability insurance. The security firms have about $20 million in insurance, he said.
Just say no
Pinkerton said it was unclear how much insurance coverage Scott has, if any. He also dismissed Scott’s offer to pay funeral and medical expenses of the victims of the tragedy.
“No victims or families are going to accept that,” Pinkerton said. “We don’t want our clients to have any communications with Scott or his people in any way.”
Scott’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.