“It puts them in the position of making a very unsympathetic argument that he was an adult and if he wanted to do this, it’s his business.
“That's going to be very challenging for the defense,” Breyer said. The complaint cites text messages from Stennett, Ortega, and Mercer appearing to offer the rapper drugs like Xanax and ketamine. A spokesperson for the Tucson Police Department said the case remains closed.)Įven without the risk of criminal charges, some of the details of the lawsuit could put First Access and the other defendants in a tight spot. (A spokesperson for the Pima County Attorney’s office in Arizona, where Lil Peep died, told Pitchfork no state felony charges are pending in the case. “There’s actually criminal implications in this, if a district attorney type was to start looking at how these drugs are being obtained and being distributed illegally,” he said. Lee Sherman, a Los Angeles lawyer who has worked on entertainment and wrongful death matters, tells me that Womack’s case goes beyond the typical quibbles of a civil lawsuit. “The complaint was very broadly worded in order to give the judge as many possible hooks to hang his or her hat on in allowing this to get to a jury.” “It was very well put together,” Breyer said. The complaint alleges five different kinds of negligence, including wrongful death, as well as three types of contract-related breaches and one violation of the California Business and Professions Code. Womack’s lawsuit offers a number of formal causes of action that could help get to that point. But California law allows for “ comparative negligence,” which means that if a jury decides Lil Peep’s managers were even one percent at fault for his death, his mother could collect damages. In some states, the law prevents an injured party from suing when they too engaged in wrongful conduct, which could include the decision to use illicit drugs. The answer to these questions takes on extra urgency because of where the case was filed. “How much duty did the people he was doing business with owe to him? It may be based in some part upon his age and vulnerability.” “This raises some really novel questions,” Los Angeles entertainment lawyer Amy Breyer said of the lawsuit. After all, nobody argued that Tom Petty or Prince, also killed tragically by overdoses in recent years, essentially weren’t adults. In that sense, Lil Peep’s case looks factually different from its most famous predecessors. (“Yes mama got new underpants on love u,” Lil Peep texted Womack months before his death, according to the lawsuit.) Although Lil Peep was legally an adult, the complaint describes him as an “impressionable kid” and a “child” whose mother still ordered his boxer briefs and socks. But her case does advance various arguments that the management team shares at least some of the responsibility. Womack’s lawsuit does not dispute that Lil Peep had a role in his own death. “It’s going to have somewhat of a ripple effect,” said Gary Adelman, a New York entertainment lawyer.
According to attorneys interviewed by Pitchfork, If Lil Peep’s mother wins a large jury award, the music industry and others may be forced to take note. What makes Womack’s case unusual if not unique, lawyers said, is that it takes aim at the handlers who were working with and profiting off of the late artist. But those cases have typically gone after a doctor or another person outside of the artist’s camp accused of providing the drugs.
#Rare lil peep mac#
The 26-page complaint, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court and obtained by Pitchfork, claims that although Lil Peep was “stressed, overwhelmed, burnt out, exhausted, and physically unwell,” his managers pushed him “onto stage after stage in city after city, plying and propping up” with assorted substances.įrom Mac Miller to Michael Jackson, civil and even criminal allegations following the death of a performer aren’t uncommon in the music world.
Liza Womack, Lil Peep’s mother and the administrator of his estate, sued the late rapper’s management on October 7, according to court documents. Now, a lawsuit over who’s to blame for Lil Peep’s fatal overdose could have potentially far-reaching implications, legal experts say. A high-profile documentary about his life, Everybody’s Everything, is scheduled for release on November 15, the second anniversary of the rapper’s death. A posthumous album, Come Over When You’re Sober Pt. The local authorities in Tucson, Arizona, where Lil Peep passed away before a scheduled tour stop in support of his debut album, Come Over When You’re Sober (Part One), ruled the cause of death to be a drug overdose of the prescription drugs fentanyl and Xanax.
Gustav Åhr, known to the world as Lil Peep, seemed poised to become emo-rap’s breakout star when he died in 2017.
0 kommentar(er)
