Texas Attorney Thomas J. Henry expects by the end of Tuesday to have added more than 100 clients to a lawsuit against the promoter, performers and venue in connection with the crowd surge at Houston's Astroworld Festival.
The event last Friday left eight dead and hundreds more injured.
Henry, who is one of the state's best-known personal injury attorneys, expects the total damages sought by his lawsuit and those of other attorneys to exceed $1 billion. He said the incident could have been prevented in a few ways.
"Not hire Travis Scott, not done Astroworld, had better planning for the event. While the event was going on in the beginning of the day when people were breaking down barriers, stop the event," Henry said.
He added damages will be sought over deaths, injuries and physical and mental anguish.
"You had people, of course, die. People with severe injuries, broken bones, fractured arms, crushing injuries. Mental trauma. You had people stepping over dead bodies," Henry said.
He also said people were traumatized by being trapped in a large crowd and not being able to move or breath. The first cases from the incident could go to trial in a year.
"I think over the course of this year we're going to see a number of depositions and I think in approximately a year, there will be a trial date on one or more cases that are filed," he said.
Henry predicts cases could stretch out for two or three years if individual out-of-court settlements are not reached. He also said the there is another option to keep lawsuits from heading to court.
"The other option, that of course always exists for defendants, is to resolve these cases and not have to put people through the lawsuit process, so you know in this situation you have these defendants that have already put people through enough," he said. "I would hope that calmer minds would allow these defendants to get together and create a victim fund for all the victims."
Henry, who is well-known across much if Texas through his television ads, said it is a big case, but not the biggest he has ever handled.
Henry's firm has offices in San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Austin and Dallas.
