Venue, concert promoter ask judge to toss Grimmie lawsuit

Lawyers for the venue where singer Christina Grimmie was killed and her concert promoter were in court Tuesday, asking a judge to throw out a lawsuit brought by her family.

Circuit Judge Kevin B. Weiss did not make a ruling Tuesday, saying he needs time to decide whether he’ll dismiss the case.

An attorney for concert promoter AEG said Grimmie had not signed a contract with the concert promoter, absolving them of responsibility in her death.

“This is a tragedy. This is horrible for the family. But AEG had no responsibility,” said the promoter’s lawyer, Todd Ehrenreich. “That is the basis of all of their accusations — a contract that doesn’t exist.”

Brian Caplan, an attorney for the Grimmie family, argued that Grimmie must have entered a verbal contract with AEG — otherwise she wouldn’t have been paid for her performance.

“Christina Grimmie is not here to tell me what the terms of that oral agreement might have been,” he said.

This is the second version of the lawsuit Grimmie’s family filed after her death against AEG and The Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra Plaza Foundation, which owns The Plaza Live, the Bumby Avenue theater where Grimmie was killed. A judge dismissed a previous complaint because of several legal issues.

Grimmie, an up-and-coming pop star best known for her performance on NBC’s “The Voice,” was shot and killed by a deranged fan while signing autographs on June 10, 2016. The shooter, who brought in two Glock pistols, two magazines and a hunting knife, took his own life after he was tackled by Grimmie’s brother.

Her death was the first in a trio of Orlando-area tragedies that week. The Pulse nightclub massacre happened two days after Grimmie’s death, and a young boy was killed by an alligator at a Disney resort days later.

Grimmie’s family argues her death could have been prevented had concert patrons been screened by metal detectors or wands.

Although such measures had been in place in previous concerts at The Plaza Live, they weren’t the night Grimmie died, her family’s lawyers said.

“They had a history of trying to keep guns and weapons out of the concert,” Caplan said. “For some reason, that night they didn’t.”

Attendees instead only had their bags searched. The venue and promoter said that stricter measures weren’t put in place because the concert was mostly attended by teenage girls. Signs posted outside of the venue indicated that no guns or weapons were allowed.

“When I go to a concert at The Plaza Live and see ‘no gun’ signs, I expect there to be no guns in the facility,” Caplan said.

After Grimmie’s death, AEG implemented a new policy requiring all venues to have metal detectors at events, according to court documents filed by lawyers for Grimmie’s family.