The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that Live Nation boss Michael Rapino can’t avoid giving a deposition in connection with the ongoing Astroworld litigation.
Live Nation has been working very hard indeed to try to stop a Rapino deposition, in which the CEO will be forced to answer questions under oath about the fatal crowd surge that occurred at the 2021 edition of Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival in Houston, which was promoted by Live Nation and its Scoremore subsidiary.
Ten people died and hundreds more were injured in the crowd surge, resulting in the filing of hundreds of lawsuits that named Live Nation, Scott and an assortment of other companies involved in the event as defendants. The wrongful death lawsuits filed by the families of the ten people who died were all ultimately settled, but many lawsuits filed by those who were injured are still working their way through the system.
The ruling on Rapino’s deposition came on the day jury selection was due to begin for the first batch of Astroworld cases in court. Although that has now been pushed back a week as Scott’s lawyers demand information about settlements that have been reached with other co-defendants.
In an attempt to stop Rapino being forced to give a deposition Live Nation’s lawyers cited the ‘apex doctrine’, a legal principle in the US that exists to stop plaintiffs in a lawsuit from immediately going straight after the senior executives of any companies involved in a case. That doctrine can be used to stop vexatious depositions that are more about inconveniencing and embarrassing senior execs at defendant companies than actually progressing the case.
Live Nation said “this case presents precisely the sort of freewheeling intrusion into business affairs that this court’s apex witness doctrine shuts down”, adding that the evidence demonstrated that Rapino “played no role in the 2021 Astroworld festival”. Nevertheless, neither the district court nor an appeals court seemed to buy that argument, both saying the deposition should go ahead, which is why the matter ended up with the Texas Supreme Court.
In a filing with the Supreme Court in August, legal reps for the injured festival-goers highlighted Rapino’s personal role in securing Live Nation’s business relationship with Scott, and in decision making and communications in the immediate aftermath of the Astroworld tragedy.
It’s not clear which of those arguments convinced the state’s top court, because the judges provide no explanation for their judgement, but those judges have formally backed the lower court rulings that say Rapino must give a deposition.
Six of the injury lawsuits were originally due to be heard during the first Astroworld trial, as so-called ‘bellwether cases’, the outcome of which will inform all the other cases that are pending. However, Judge Kristen Hawkins subsequently revealed that only three of the bellwether cases would actually proceed, before then pushing back the start of jury selection by a week.
According to Scott’s legal team, a number of the injured festival-goers involved in those bellwether cases have now reached settlement deals with some of the other defendants. That includes Apple, which got caught up in the litigation because it was livestreaming Scott’s set at Astroworld when the crowd surge occurred.
Scott’s lawyers argue that they need information about those settlement arrangements to enable them to properly prepare for the upcoming trial. Not only that, but they reckon, under Texas rules, lawyers working for the festival-goers are obliged to disclose that information.
To that end they filed a ‘motion to compel’ at the end of last month in a bid to force disclosure. However, Judge Hawkins has so far declined to rule on that motion.
With that in mind, Scott’s team has now taken the matter to an appeals court. In their filing, they state, “the trial court’s refusal to rule on the motion to compel has a particular urgency due to the impending trial date, as the Scott defendants require the details of each settlement to adequately evaluate its exposure, engage in negotiations, strategise for cross-examination and argument, and evaluate witness bias”.
Jury selection for the bellwether cases is now due to begin next Tuesday, but it’s not clear if Scott’s filing with the appeals court or the Supreme Court ruling on the Rapino deposition will further delay things.