First Trial Over Travis Scott’s Astroworld Festival Delayed By Apple’s Free Speech Claims

The first civil trial for Travis Scott, Live Nation and others over their role in the 2021 disaster at the Astroworld music festival — set to kick off next week — has now been delayed.

After more than two years of litigation over a crowd crush that left 10 dead and hundreds injured, a trial had been finally set to start on Monday (May 6) – a pivotal first test for hundreds of other cases filed by victims and families who claim festival organizers were legally negligent.

But those proceedings have now been pushed back indefinitely, thanks to an unresolved battle over whether Apple Inc., which filmed Scott’s fateful performance, should be involved in the case.

In a ruling Thursday, a Texas appeals court refused to let the case move forward until it can rule on the ongoing dispute over Apple’s involvement. It gave Apple until May 10 to file paperwork in the case – meaning the May 6 start date must be postponed until at least then, and likely longer.

At a hearing the same day reported by the Associated Press, the trial judge overseeing the Astroworld case confirmed the delay to the scheduled: “Unless I hear differently, the trial is stayed,” Judge Kristen Hawkins said at the hearing.

Hundreds of people have sued over the Nov. 5, 2021 incident at Astroworld, in which a crowd crush during Scott’s headlining set caused 10 fans to die from compression asphyxia and hundreds of other to sustain injuries. Collectively seeking billions in potential damages, the victims claim that Scott (real name Jacques Bermon Webster II), Live Nation and many others were legally negligent in how they planned and conducted the festival.

After years of discovery and depositions, the first trial in the massive litigation – a wrongful death case filed by family of Madison Dubiski, a 23-year-old who died at Astroworld – had been to start on May 6.

Apple, which offered an exclusive livestream of Scott’s performance that night, was named as a defendant in many of those cases, including the one filed by the Dubiskis. The victims claim Apple directly contributed to disaster with the placement of its equipment: “Apple’s role in the tragedy is straightforward: it reduced the available crowd space, when available space was a matter of life or limb.”

The tech giant has strongly denied those claims. In a motion last month demanding to be dismissed from the litigation, Apple argued that simply livestreaming the event doesn’t make the company liable for the disaster: “Apple is not the reason plaintiffs lost their loved one.”

Instead, the company said it had been filming the deadly event as a member of the media, meaning it was insulated from such lawsuits by the First Amendment.

“Allowing plaintiffs to pursue Apple under state tort law for exercising its free speech rights would have a significant chilling effect,” the company wrote last month in a motion. “Recognizing such a legal duty in this case would be entirely unprecedented and would impose significant burdens on broadcasters and livestreamers that are frequently bystanders at events.”

In a ruling last month, Judge Hawkins denied that motion, leaving Apple to face the looming trial alongside Scott, Live Nation and the other defendants. So the tech giant filed an immediate appeal with a state appellate court seeking to overturn that ruling – a move that, under Texas state law, imposes an automatic pause on any upcoming trial proceedings.

“Apple recognizes that the trial date is imminent, and that both the court and all parties have devoted much time and effort to preparing the case for trial,” Apple’s attorneys on Tuesday. “These free speech and free press issues warrant appellate resolution before Apple faces trial.”

As it became clear that Apple’s appeal could delay the trial, attorneys for Dubiski’s family sharply criticized the move, calling it “a surreptitious plan to derail the proceedings” with a “frivolous” appeal. In a Wednesday motion seeking to dismiss the appeal and stick to the trial date, they argued that Apple was no more shielded by the First Amendment than a Houston television station “whose news van negligently crashes into a pedestrian while covering a story.”

“The Dubiski family … have waited patiently for their day in court, only to watch Apple shamelessly seek to manipulate the system,” lawyers for the victim’s family wrote. “Litigation is not supposed to work this way. This court should promptly dismiss this appeal.”

But in an order late Thursday, the appeals court refused to unfreeze the case ahead of the planned trial date: “Appellees’ request to lift any applicable stay of trial proceedings is denied.” Instead, it ordered Apple to respond by May 10 to the plaintiffs’ request to dismiss the case.