Fyre Festival ticket holder Daniel Jung has failed to secure class-action status for the four-year long case against the organisers of the ill-fated event.
The Netherlands resident attended the festival in 2017 and later levied a $100m lawsuit against the organiser back in April of 2017. The case is still proceeding through the court, however, and New York federal judge P. Kevin Castel has now made two new rulings.
Judge Castel has declined to issue a default judgement in the case in addition to refusing to grant the requested class-action status, which would enable other ticketholders to receive compensation in the event of a legal victory.
The plaintiff is one of various ticketholders to sue the Fyre Festival company and Billy McFarland, who remains behind bars, having started serving a six-year prison sentence in 2018, seeking compensation for monies spent on tickets, travel and accommodation.
Jung and his legal team claim in the suit that he and so many other fans were “lured to a deserted island and left to fend for themselves.” The filing maintains that the owed damages “exceed the face value of their ticket packages by many orders of magnitude.”
The judge said that because Jung is based in the Netherlands, it was unclear whether he would be able to “adequately monitor” and participate in the case on behalf of others who purchased passes to the Bahamas music festival.
In addition, the case centres on the allegation that ticket-holders were misled by marketing and communications put out by McFarland’s company. The possibility that false advertisements had led Jung to purchase a Fyre Festival ticket is not a well-suited foundation for a class-action lawsuit.
With different ticketholders having seen different adverts ahead of the festival, Jung’s claims may not be “typical of those that would be made by absent members of the would-be class.”
Earlier this year, a federal court ordered Kendall Jenner to pay a $90,000 fine for her part in promoting Fyre Festival on social media.
In addition, the judge specified that he will however conduct a preliminary hearing concerning the allegations made by Jung.
Image: A. Duarte / CC BY-SA 2.0 / Edited for size
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