Drake is pushing to be dismissed from the sprawling lawsuit over Travis Scott's 2021 Astroworld festival disaster, arguing he had nothing to do with planning the deadly event and can't be sued for merely making a brief guest appearance.
More than 2,500 people have filed a lawsuit over the 2021 Astroworld event in which a crowd of fans rushed the stage during Scott's Nov. 5 performance, leaving 10 dead and hundreds injured. Although the lawsuits primarily target Scott, Live Nation and other promoters, Drake has also been named as a defendant in some cases for appearing on stage during Scott's fatal performance.
But in a motion filed Friday (March 8) in a Houston court, attorneys for Drake (real name Aubrey Drake Graham) argued that the star should not be involved in the case at all. They said he had no involvement in Astroworld beyond being asked to take the stage – and that festival organizers had “confirmed under oath that Mr Graham was not involved in any planning”.
They also say that Drake was not aware of any safety issues before taking the stage. “Mr. Graham received no security briefings, crowd control issues, crowd injuries or deaths, or stoppage orders at any time either before or during his 14-minute performance.”
Instead, they say Drake simply “arrived at the venue at approximately 7:30 p.m. and remained largely sequestered backstage in a trailer until approximately 9:54 p.m.,” when he was “informed to take the stage.” The star then “immediately took the stage as requested, performed for approximately 14 minutes and then exited the stage at 10:08 p.m.”
Lawsuits related to Astroworld allege that organizers were legally negligent in the way they planned and ran the event, including failing to provide adequate security and emergency support. The cases, combined into a single large action in Houston, seek billions in potential damages. Much of the past two years has been spent in discovery, as the two sides exchange information and take depositions from key figures.
In Friday's motion, Drake's lawyers argued that the discovery process had resulted in “hundreds of hours” of depositions and “hundreds of thousands of pages of documents” but that none of them had proven that Drake could be held liable for negligence.
“Plaintiffs provide no evidence that Mr. Graham actually knew of any danger in the design and layout of the festival grounds, the skill or adequacy of the festival staff and personnel, or the emergency procedures such as the authority failure to appear,” his lawyers wrote.
The alleged victims, represented by a number of plaintiffs' law firms, will have an opportunity to respond to Drake's motion in the coming weeks.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/legal/drake-astroworld-tragedy-fault-wants-out-lawsuits-1235631548/
