“Performers are not expected to render special protection to the audience,” the rapper’s attorneys wrote in the filing Monday
Travis Scott has requested to be dismissed from the ongoing lawsuits tied to the deadly Astroworld crowd rush, according to a motion filed in Houston on Monday, with Scott’s attorneys arguing that he wasn’t in charge of event safety and that “performers are not expected to render special protection to the audience, nor to safeguard them from the rest of the crowd.”
The motion comes over two years after 10 people died and hundreds of others were injured during Scott’s performance in November 2021. Drake, who came out as a surprise guest at the end of Scott’s Astroworld performance, similarly motioned for dismissal last week as well.
Scott and his team have said in public statements and in court filings that the rapper was unaware of the tragedy both during the show and immediately after the concert. In the motion filed Monday, Scott’s lawyer, Daniel Petrocelli, wrote that the evidence “demonstrates that the Scott Defendants were not responsible for venue security or operations, or the site layout.” Even if he were, Petrocelli wrote, “the evidence confirms that the Scott Defendants acted diligently to protect against every reasonably apprehensible danger, as due care requires.”
“No one disputes that tragedy struck the Astroworld Festival,” the motion said. “But promoting and performing at a concert do not equate to the power to control a crowd or to design a venue safely. Basic tort principles prevent imposing liability on the Scott Defendants for a tragedy arising from forces legally controlled by others.”
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Scott was deposed over five months ago, and Drake was deposed last November. Scott’s deposition was originally in September, but he was deposed again at the beginning of October as plaintiffs’ attorneys told the court that they couldn’t obtain Scott’s phone records. Scott’s attorneys said the rapper’s phone fell to the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico and the records were unobtainable.
A grand jury in Houston determined last June that Scott and several organizers behind the festival would not face criminal charges over the festival. Houston Police released an extensive 1,266-page report a month later, detailing a disturbing and chaotic scene amidst the tragedy, along with interviews from Scott, his manager David Stromberg, Drake, festival organizers and crew workers.
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