Music Venue Might be Liable for Wrongful Death
When thousands of people attend a concert, does the concert operator owe a duty of reasonable care to attendees?
Yes, according to last week’s California Court of Appeal decision in the tragic case of Dix v. Live Nation Entertainment, Inc.
In August of 2015, Katie Dix attended the Hard Summer Music Festival in Pomona, California. The festival and related activities were operated by Live Nation Entertainment, and 65,000 people were estimated to attend each day of the festival.
Owing to the large crowds, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services required Live Nation to have a ‘medical action plan’, to ensure that participants of mass gathering events have access to the appropriate level of care and to minimize the impact of mass gathering events on the local EMS system.
According to trial court evidence, as one of the largest music venue operators in the world, Live Nation knew that many concert attendees ingest illegal drugs and alcohol at their events. The entrances of this particular concert had “amnesty boxes” where concert attendees could surrender illegal substances anonymously without fear of being arrested.
Nineteen-year-old Katie Dix arrived at the concert with a few friends, and at some point, she ingested Ecstasy. Shortly thereafter, she collapsed. Her friends tried urgently to get medical help, but security guards monitoring the concert grounds did not seem to appreciate the urgency of the situation. When help finally arrived, it was too late. Katie died before arriving at the hospital; her cause of death was determined to be acute drug intoxication.
Katie’s parents sued Live Nation, alleging that the overcrowded and understaffed conditions at Hard Fest delayed the response of onsite emergency medical service providers. As a result, Live Nation was unable to provide the immediate, necessary and urgent medical treatment that Katie required. The Dixes argued that Live Nation owed a duty to concert attendees because of the “special relationship” between concert operators and patrons.
The trial court granted Live Nation’s motion for summary judgment. Essentially, the lower court agreed with Live Nation that the concert operator did not owe a duty to concertgoers like Katie Dix. The court also pointed out that while tragic, Katie Dix was ultimately responsible for ingesting the illegal drugs.
The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court. In a lengthy opinion, the court noted that each of the 65,000 people who entered the music venue were invited onto the property. Once they passed through security, attendees were completely at the mercy of Live Nation. In the event of a medical emergency, Live Nation controlled not only if and when attendees would receive medical care, but also the nature and extent of the care. Attendees could not summon their own medical care. It was also foreseeable that attendees would require emergency medical care because of Live Nation’s knowledge that many participants took drugs at its events in the past.
Finally, the court pointed out that while it was true Katie Dix ingested illegal drugs, that evidence could be used by Live Nation to dispute whether it breached its duty of care in this case. But the court rejected the argument that Live Nation owed no duty in the first place.
This case is important because it clarifies that concert operators have a special relationship with concertgoers. The same argument might apply to other venues where thousands of patrons place themselves under the care and control of an entertainment or other large recreational venue. These cases are fact-specific, so if you have questions about a particular case, discuss it with an attorney knowledgeable about how the law views “special relationships” like these.
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