Live Nation is battling yet another lawsuit tied to a drug overdose. Should they really be held liable?
As of late, Live Nation hasn’t had a good reputation. From harassing us for publishing an article about their TSA PreCheck integration (that I personally investigated and wrote) to a facing a lawsuit from the family of a teenage girl at a Live Nation L.A. rave back in July, another family of another teenage who attended a Live Nation-sponsored rave is also suing the company.
Emily Michelle Tran had attended the Hard Summer rave back in August 2014 at Whittier Narrows. An autopsy conducted found that Tran had overdosed on ecstasy. At the rave, she had gone to the health tent when she was then rushed to the hospital at around 8:30 p.m., where she unfortunately passed away.
The lawsuit said that Live Nation “should have known, that raves like Hard Summer encourage the possession, distribution and consumption of illegal drugs like Ecstasy” and did not do enough to staff the event with “enough security to discourage the use of drugs” and in doing so, the company had “breached its duty to keep its attendees safe.”
The lawsuit also continues stating that Live Nation “knowingly oversold the event and created an atmosphere that was overattended, overcrowded and dangerous.” Going further, it blames Tran’s hospital transport with being “negligently delayed.”
This wasn’t the only time, unfortunately, the Hard Summer rave attracted this kind of attention, with the rave the following year ending with two college students passing away due to drug overdose. Just this year, the same rave had a similar ending, only this time with not two, but three rave-goers being sent to the hospital, where they were unable to be saved due to drugs in their systems.
Now, while Live Nation may defend itself by stating that they are not responsible for those who bring and consume drugs in this event, seeing as how in just three years, these events have the same tragic outcome, this writer would tend to agree more with one of the final statements made in the Tran lawsuit:
“They turned a blind eye to the known risks in order to capitalize on teenagers and young adults, who believed they were attending a safe party environment properly staffed with adequate security services and emergency personnel.”
Live Nation has yet to comment on these lawsuits or deaths.
Rave On image by Thomas Hawk, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC by 2.0)
Seriously, you’re equating an overdose fatality with a PR miscommunication?