Travis Scott, who’s scheduled to face a trial in May in connection with a lawsuit filed by the family of an Astroworld tragedy victim. Photo Credit: Frank Schwichtenberg
Weeks after approving Drake’s request to be dropped from civil litigation filed over the Astroworld tragedy, the presiding judge has rejected Travis Scott’s own dismissal motion.
Harris County District Judge Kristen Hawkins just recently issued the relevant order, which entered the media spotlight in a report from the Associated Press. As described by the outlet, Judge Hawkins “declined to dismiss hundreds of lawsuits” levied against 32-year-old Scott following the crowd crush that took place at Astroworld in November of 2021.
The unfortunate occurrence resulted in hundreds of injuries and 10 deaths, ultimately spurring a multitude of complaints as well. Defendants including Live Nation have settled certain of these actions during the past 30 or so months, but a number of the lawsuits are unresolved.
At the intersection of that point and Scott’s remaining a party to the litigation, a lawsuit submitted by the family of Madison Dubiski, who perished in the tragedy, is set to go to trial on May 6th. The action will mark the first Astroworld-related suit to receive a trial.
Furthermore, Arnold & Itkin’s Noah Wexler, a self-described “fearless trial lawyer” and attorney for the family of Dubiski, has claimed that Scott showed a “‘conscious disregard for safety’” at Astroworld 2021.
While a grand jury decided against handing down criminal charges, the final police report on the matter appeared to place a substantial portion of the blame on Scott and his team in terms of how long the show continued after the crowd crush began.
Given the far-from-positive optics of the deadly episode and the many multimillion-dollar settlements Arnold & Itkin says it’s secured to date, it will, of course, be worth closely monitoring the trial’s outcome.
Separately, it was only in late March that Scott scored a legal victory in a different Astroworld complaint, filed this time by Sony Music-backed Ceremony of Roses.
A “global media, branding, design and events company,” Ceremony of Roses had been tapped to provide attractions for Astroworld 2021. Owing to the profit-split nature of the deal as well as the festival’s abrupt end on its first day, the company was seeking damages stemming from set-up costs.
Finally, regarding Scott’s ongoing litigation, February brought a copyright infringement lawsuit against him, Metro Boomin, Sony Music Publishing, and others over alleged unauthorized samples. According to the plaintiffs, a track entitled “Bitches (Reply)” was incorporated without permission into two works released by Scott: six-year-old “Stargazing” and the newer “Til Further Notice,” the last song on 2023’s Utopia.
