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- People who receive refunds for Astroworld could be waiving their right to sue event organizers, a legal expert warned.
- Nine people died after the festival last week, where hundreds were injured in a deadly crowd surge.
- Refund agreements containing language that negates a concertgoer's right to sue could be challenged in court, however.
People receiving Astroworld refunds should check the fine print as they could be signing away their right to sue the event's organizers, a legal expert told Insider.
Nine people died after the music festival hosted by rapper Travis Scott in Houston last week. Hundreds of people were injured after the crowd of more than 50,000 people rushed toward the stage.
Festival organizer Scoremore released a joint statement with promoter Live Nation saying that individual refunds would be offered to everyone who bought tickets for the event. It is unclear if concertgoers will be automatically refunded, or if they must request a refund from the organizers, but legal experts warn that anyone who accepts the may be waiving their right to sue the companies.
Live Nation and Scoremore did not immediately return Insider's requests for comment on Friday.
Neama Rahmani, the president and a co-founder of personal-injury firm West Coast Trial Lawyers, said that concertgoers who are offered a refund could be waiving their right to sue because they are receiving something of value.
"Courts generally uphold those types of waivers," Rahmani told Insider. "The classic case is arbitration agreements. Everyone kind of scrolls through. No one reads the fine print and guess what, you've waived your right to a jury trial, waived your right to file a lawsuit, to demand arbitration."
However, Dmitriy Shakhnevich, an adjunct assistant professor at the John Jay School of Criminal Justice, told Insider that he didn't think a refund agreement negating concortgoers' right to sue festival organizers would be enforceable in court.
"If after an event that is traumatizing and that is difficult to overcome, you give somebody a refund for a ticket and sneak in some language in there, at the very least, that can be challenged in court in good faith," Shakhnevich said.
The terms of use waiver for Live Nation's ticket service says that people who buy tickets through its website "agree that any dispute or claim" related to the service must be settled through the company with individual arbitration outside of court. "By agreeing to individual arbitration, you and we each waive any right to participate in a class-action lawsuit or class-wide arbitration," the waiver says.
Shakhnevich and Rahmani agree that Live Nation's terms of use for its ticket provider could be challenged in court.
According to Shakhnevich, Live Nation would need to file a motion to move the case to arbitration if someone filed a lawsuit related to the event, which would open the door for the plaintiff to challenge the enforceability of the terms of service.
Rahmani said in an email that while arbitration provisions are "generally upheld by the courts," a person who used the ticket service and still wanted to sue Live Nation could challenge the agreement on the basis that it does not notify concertgoers that there is a potential for violence at the event.
"The terms discuss Live Nation's website, mobile app, tickets, COVID, etc., but not the potential for serious injury or death caused by the set up of the event, security or lack thereof, or artists encouraging violence," Rahmani said.
Travis Scott previously pleaded guilty to charges of reckless or disorderly conduct after rowdy concerts in 2015 and 2017. Legal experts previously told Insider that it's unlikely Scott will face criminal charges related to Astroworld, unless prosecutors find a "direct connection" between something the rapper said onstage and what took place in the crowd.