Concerts are a great time, but we have all a had a night out that gets out of hand. Once the dancing gets too wild or tailgaters start to reach their limit, things can really get dangerous.
How dangerous? In April 2017, a rowdy concert led to paralysis.
A 23-year-old fan was on a third-story balcony at a Travis Scott concert. The rapper encouraged fans to get wild and jump from the second-story balcony. One fan said he was pushed and fell onto the stage.
Scott recognized that the fan was injured, gave the fan a ring, and allowed the fan to be dragged off the stage without any proper medical attention. The fan is now paralyzed. His injuries included a fractured vertebrae and right ankle, as well as a broken left wrist.
The fan is now suing Travis Scott and a list of other organizations associated with the concert, including the concert promoter and the security team.
If you get hurt at a concert and face high medical bills, you may not have to pay them on your own. Injuries caused by rowdy fans or poor venue management may not be your fault, and can be settled by a personal injury lawsuit.
Before you take the claim to court, however, you will need to take the following steps to prepare your case and ensure that you have the best chance at receiving the compensation that you deserve.
Gather Evidence
In order to win your case, you will need proof that your injuries and financial losses are the direct result of negligence or another person’s actions. This could be a drunken fan that hit you in the head with a beer bottle, or a music venue that filled the venue beyond capacity and provided a dangerous environment.
Witness accounts, Florida laws, and information available on your concert tickets may all be valuable evidence that can help you prove that your injuries were due to another’s negligence. Other evidence includes your medical bills and time that you needed to take off work.
Make sure that you include all of your injuries and all of the compensation you need from your injuries, and have proof that the money you are asking for is the result of loss of income, pain and suffering, or other financial expenses related to the negligent actions.
Read Up on Florida Personal Injury Law
If you are injured in Florida, you might have a different experience than if you are injured at a concert in New York or California. There are many different types of personal injury law in Florida, and many of them could apply to a concert injury.
Take the stage collapse incident from Ultra Music Festival in Miami. The festival is known for injuries – and even deaths – year after year. In 2013, one of the stages collapsed during a sound check and injured four people.
If the stage was not set up properly, one of the festival staff was being negligent and caused the collapse, or the stage had collapsed later during the festival despite the danger, the injured persons may have a premises liability case on their hands. If festival medical personnel failed to address injuries properly and that negligence led to further injury, the victims may have a medical malpractice case on their hands.
Once you determine what type of case you are going to file, you can figure out different logistics of the case and how to move forward. A Florida slip and fall case, for example, has different rules than a medical malpractice or a premises liability case. Slip and fall cases have a statute of limitations of four years. If the case involves medical malpractice, you may only have two years to file a lawsuit.
Talk to an Experienced Florida Injury Lawyer
While it is valuable for you to learn some of the basics of Florida injury law to get a general sense of what your options are and what a case will be like, you shouldn’t navigate your personal injury claim on your own.
Concert promoters and large festivals have a lot of resources and will surely come up with numerous arguments to fight your claim. Before you file a claim, the best thing that you can do is to reach out to a personal injury lawyer.
He or she will be able to take you through the process of filing a claim and fighting to get compensation for your injuries. An attorney with experience in different areas of personal injury law will be able to identify which type of case you should pursue and who you should try to hold accountable.
Don’t wait. Reach out to our office today.
About the Author:
Andrew Winston is a partner at the personal injury law firm of Winston Law. For over 20 years, he has successfully represented countless people in all kinds of personal injury cases, with a particular focus on child injury, legal malpractice, and premises liability. He has been recognized for excellence in the representation of injured clients by admission to the Million Dollar Advocates Forum, is AV Preeminent Rated by the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, enjoys a 10.0 rating by AVVO as a Top Personal Injury Attorney, has been selected as a Florida “SuperLawyer” from 2011-2017 – an honor reserved for the top 5% of lawyers in the state – and was voted to Florida Trend’s ”Legal Elite” and as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Florida and one of the Top 100 Lawyers in the Miami area for 2015, 2016, and 2017.
