The stage lighting company Christie Lites has released a statement confirming that it has launched a professional negligence lawsuit against global staging specialist StageCo over the collapse of a lighting tower.
Christie is suing StageCo for damages, after a 90 foot high lighting tower set up by the staging company collapsed ahead of a major sporting event. The incident occurred at the Fort Worth Stockyards, Texas, in June 2009, prior to a motocross event shown on national television.
In the lawsuit, filed recently in a Texas state court, Christie Lites claims that the collapse of the tower completely destroyed specialist equipment owned by the company. The company also said that it was fortunate that the incident occurred before and not during the motocross event, where staff and members of the public may have been at risk from injury or even loss of life.
Christie Lites is believed to be seeking more than $1,500,000 in actual and punitive damages from Stage Co, which in turn has confirmed that it has professional insurance in place to protect all parties. A statement from StageCo operations manager Tom Bilsen reads as follows:
“Stageco takes its responsibilities very seriously, we are fully insured, so all parties will be appropriately protected and reimbursed. Following this unfortunate incident we initiated our own investigation; there are multiple parties and multiple factors under consideration such as unpredicted wind gusts, and most importantly, there were no injuries.”