$18 Million Settlement for Tour Photographer Crushed by Runaway Forklift After Green Day Concert

Green Day, Weezer, and Fall Out Boy played Citizens Bank Park in South Philadelphia on August 20, 2021, on the Hella Mega Tour. Jake Chamseddine was there for work. He was a photographer traveling with the tour, and once the show ended he tried to leave the stadium the same way the crew was moving the gear out.

That load-out was handled by Tri-State Stage Labor, a local staging contractor hired by Live Nation, which had leased the ballpark from the Phillies for the night. According to the pretrial filings described by The Legal Intelligencer, Live Nation directed both pedestrians and equipment crews onto the same ramp. A Tri-State employee, Michael Conenna, was operating a forklift on that ramp. He jumped off the moving machine without engaging the parking brake. The unmanned forklift rolled down the ramp and pinned Chamseddine between the lift and a concrete and metal post.

The injuries were close to fatal. Chamseddine's femoral artery was lacerated, and his pelvis, femur, and lower back were fractured. He was taken to Jefferson University Hospital, where surgeons saved both his life and his leg. His lawyers later said the treating physician offered to testify at trial without being paid.

Chamseddine sued the Phillies, Live Nation, Tri-State, and Conenna in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, seeking $20 million. Each defendant pointed at the others. Live Nation said it had contracted with Tri-State for trained operators and had no reason to expect Conenna to abandon basic safety procedure, so his decision to jump off the forklift, not anything Live Nation did, caused the injury. The Phillies argued they owed no duty to warn about an obvious hazard on a ramp that Live Nation, the tour managers, and Tri-State all knew was shared by forklifts and people. Tri-State and Conenna answered that Live Nation and the Phillies should have put a safety plan in place that complied with federal forklift standards, and that Conenna was reacting reasonably to a sudden emergency.

The plaintiff's case, as Kevin P. O'Brien of Stampone O'Brien Dilsheimer Holloway described it, was that Live Nation controlled back-of-house safety as the event host, that it had improperly routed foot traffic and equipment through the same ramp, and that companies running forklifts around pedestrians have to make sure their operators are trained, certified, and have read the operator's manual. O'Brien tried the case with Tyler J. Stampone, who led the initial investigation, and Brock J. Atkins.

Trial began before Judge Caroline Turner and ran for seven days. On November 1, 2024, just before Chamseddine was scheduled to testify, the defendants agreed to pay $18 million. Live Nation and Tri-State are paying the majority of the settlement, with the Phillies and other parties covering the remainder. O'Brien credited Live Nation and Tri-State for resolving the case before his client had to relive the injury on the witness stand.

The Phillies were represented by Robert J. Foster of Reger Rizzo Darnall, Tri-State and Conenna by Jonathon E. Cross of Marshall Dennehey, and Live Nation by Kenneth S. Fair of Naulty, Scaricamazza and McDevitt. Chamseddine, whose injuries are ongoing, said through counsel that he hoped the lessons about forklift safety would be learned from the case.