Live Nation will have to either go to trial or settle a lawsuit that blames the concert promotions juggernaut for a deadly 2023 shooting at the Beyond Wonderland festival in Washington, a judge ruled.
The Feb. 13 court ruling rejected Live Nation’s motion for summary judgment over its alleged culpability in the June 2023 shooting at the Gorge Amphitheatre, which saw a man, James Kelly, open fire at the festival campgrounds after allegedly taking hallucinogenic mushrooms.
The case was brought in 2024 by the families of Brandy Escamilla and Josilyn Ruiz, who died in the shooting, as well as by Lily Luksich, Kelly’s then-girlfriend, who was shot but survived. The victims claim Live Nation, which operates the Gorge and promoted the EDM festival through its partial subsidiary Insomniac Events, could have prevented the shooting if it had more carefully screened festival attendees for drugs and weapons or ejected Kelly after he began acting suspiciously.
Live Nation maintains that it could not have foreseen that Kelly, an upstanding Army servicemember with no known violent history, would go on an “unprovoked homicidal rampage” during a “bad trip.” The company says it can’t be held liable for failing to prevent something so random — and that its security team’s gun-sniffing dogs did in fact search Kelly’s car when he entered the Gorge campground, but found nothing.
But Judge Patrick Oishi was apparently unconvinced by this argument, refusing to dismiss the case in a one-page order that did not specify his reasoning. The case will now move towards a trial currently scheduled for June, though it’s possible Live Nation will opt to settle the claims rather than go before a jury.
A lawyer for the Escamilla and Ruiz families, Brian Panish, said in a statement on Thursday (Feb. 19) that the ruling is “a critical step toward accountability for the tragic 2023 Beyond Wonderland shooting.”
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“The court correctly rejected Live Nation’s attempt to avoid responsibility by claiming it owed no duty to take reasonable measures to protect concertgoers from the foreseeable risk of gun violence at its venue,” added Panish. “Our clients’ families deserve their day in court and will continue to pursue justice to ensure this never happens to another family.”
Luksich’s attorney, Tomás Gahan, told Billboard that the decision “was not only correct, it was expected.”
“The thrust of Live Nation’s argument was that it could not be liable for failing to take any reasonable actions to keep firearms out of its concert and campground venue because the risk of a mass shooting resulting from allowing firearms inside the venue under these circumstances was somehow ‘not foreseeable,” said Gahan. “This contention flew in the face of the facts of the case, which made clear that Live Nation knew that there was a real risk of a mass shooting should guns be permitted inside its venue.”
A rep for Live Nation did not return a request for comment on the decision.
The families of Escamilla and Ruiz are suing for wrongful death and seeking unspecified financial damages for funeral costs, lost earning capacity and emotional suffering. They’re also bringing negligence claims alongside Luksich, who wants monetary damages for both physical and mental pain.
The 2024 lawsuit alleges that the joint Live Nation-Insomniac venture “prioritized profit over security.” The victims say Live Nation didn’t adequately search Kelly’s car, even though they knew illicit drugs and weapons were an issue on the premises; they pointed out that in 2022, just one year earlier, a man had been arrested during the Bass Canyon festival at the Gorge, also promoted by Live Nation, after he inhaled an intoxicant and then loaded two pistols in the venue’s parking lot.
“Despite that history and knowledge, Live Nation failed to take reasonable steps to make the venue and campgrounds safe for concertgoers,” reads the lawsuit.
Live Nation contends that the events of June 2023 were “heinous, random acts of murder.” The company notes that this was the first shooting to take place at the Gorge in its 20 years overseeing the venue, and that Beyond Wonderland had always been peaceful before the incident.
Another injured victim in the shooting, Andrew Cuadra, is also suing Live Nation in a separate case. A summary judgment hearing in that lawsuit is set for March.
Kelly, meanwhile, is facing criminal murder charges and has maintained a plea of not guilty. His case is being prosecuted in military court because he was serving as a field artillery coordinator at a Washington army base at the time of the shooting, according to the NBC affiliate KHQ.
