You Just Knew It Was Coming: Lawsuit Filed Over SB Seating Issues

[chefcraig]

I really don't get this. For compensation, the league is payed folks three times the ticket price in cash, access to the field, free food and drink, and all expenses paid (including travel & accommodations) to next year's (or any future) Super Bowl. I guess now people want pain and suffering added as well.

Lawsuit filed over Super Bowl seating problems

Post Gazette (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11041/1124391-66.stm)

A Los Angeles-based law firm filed a class-action lawsuit late Tuesday against the Dallas Cowboys, owner Jerry Jones and the National Football League seeking damages for ticket holders assigned to incomplete temporary seating sections and those whose view was obstructed.

The lawsuit lists Mike Dolabi, a ticket-holder and resident of Tarrant County, which includes Arlington and Fort Worth, Texas, and Steve Simms, a ticket holder and resident of Lycoming County, Pa., as plaintiffs. It seeks more than $5 million in damages.

The law firm, Eagan Avenatti, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Dallas. It accuses the team of putting Cowboys season-ticket holders who bought tickets to Super Bowl XLV Sunday between the Steelers and the Green Bay Packers in folding chairs with obstructed views of the game. It also represents the 400 ticket-holders who could not use their seats because guard rails on stairways leading to the seats were not completed by game time.

"It is apparent based on our investigation that the Cowboys and the NFL knew well before game time that they were not going to be able to deliver what had been promised to fans," Michael Avenatti, a founding partner of the firm, said in a phone interview Tuesday. "Despite that fact, they made no effort to disclose that to fans before they traveled to the stadium."

The Cowboys declined to comment. NFL vice president of corporate communications Brian McCarthy said Wednesday that the league was aware of the allegations through media reports but did not have a comment.

"We need time to take a look at the suit," he said.

The lawsuit alleges breach of contract, as well as fraud, deceit and concealment, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. It seeks to recover the economic loss of the ticket-holders, which under the DTPA can be tripled, and punitive damages. The lawsuit said the plaintiffs plan to show the league and the Cowboys acted with malice, which would allow the court to assess the punitive damages.

The league announced late Tuesday that the 400 fans who could not use their seats can either accept a refund three times the face value of their tickets, $2,400 for the $800 tickets, and a ticket to Super Bowl XLVI next season in Indianapolis, or a ticket, hotel and air fare to any future Super Bowl they choose.

Previously, the NFL offered the fans only the first option. The suit claims this offer is "wholly insufficient to compensate the Plaintiffs for all of their expenses, including but not limited to travel costs, or for their disappointment and frustration in not being able to properly enjoy the Super Bowl."

McCarthy said senior NFL officials, including commissioner Roger Goodell, were reaching out to everyone who did not have a seat, with the goal of contacting them all by today.

[Jagermeister]

Sounds like they have a case to me.

[PETE'S BROTHER]

them fuckin' cowboys acted with malice.....:umm:

[chefcraig]

I'm not denying that there is a case is in there somewhere, I'm just wondering how much of an ambulance-chasing exercise this truly is. You also have to wonder if there was any sort of document these people had to sign before getting their initial compensation last Sunday, stating they could not ask for further rewards. If even the nutso Van Halen brain trust (arguably the most litigious and demented group of blood-suckers in the music business) was bright enough to come up with such a requirement to allow Michael Anthony to tour with the group in 2004, you can only imagine that Jerry Jones (or the NFL itself), being somewhat more shrewd, had thought of such a thing in this instance. Then again, that sort of forethought would have eliminated this fiasco in the first place.

[VanHalener]

Not one of the fans was given a reach around while they were being phucked in the ass at the gate.

Free everything at the next game is a good way to pay off that debt.

[Jagermeister]

I'm not denying that there is a case is in there somewhere, I'm just wondering how much of an ambulance-chasing exercise this truly is. You also have to wonder if there was any sort of document these people had to sign before getting their initial compensation last Sunday, stating they could not ask for further rewards. If even the nutso Van Halen brain trust (arguably the most litigious and demented group of blood-suckers in the music business) was bright enough to come up with such a requirement to allow Michael Anthony to tour with the group in 2004, you can only imagine that Jerry Jones (or the NFL itself), being somewhat more shrewd, had thought of such a thing in this instance. Then again, that sort of forethought would have eliminated this fiasco in the first place.

Well look at it from the fans point of view. You shell out the money for tickets, get all excited about the game and show up and get dry fucked. Hell I would have been pissed off also. Don't know that I would file a law suit or not but still. And you would think that if these folks have season tickets they have money to throw at a damn law suit.

[chefcraig]

Well look at it from the fans point of view. You shell out the money for tickets, get all excited about the game and show up and get dry fucked. Hell I would have been pissed off also. Don't know that I would file a law suit or not but still. And you would think that if these folks have season tickets they have money to throw at a damn law suit.

Believe me, I grasp what they went through, having to deal not only with today's joyless and trying atmosphere of paranoia when it comes to air travel, but in the midst of ghastly weather. Then to have to wait for hours in line because the stadium doors were malfunctioning, to finally get up to the head of the line with anticipation building the entire time, and be turned away because there is no seating. Then getting forced to watch tv outside the stadium in that same freezing, miserable weather.

I get all that, and who wouldn't? And I agree the league should pay up for it, compensating for travel expenses, including accommodations. But something is very, very off when you look at the numbers. The firm representing the ticket holders is asking for 5 million or so. OK, but $5,000,000 divided by 400 comes out to only $12,500 per person, providing the lawyers don't take a cut. HUH? It just doesn't add up when you figure that some folks must have spent far more than that in the first place.

So just whom exactly, is being served by this suit? It certainly doesn't appear to be the ticket holders, and this is what I mean by an "ambulance-chasing exercise."

[Jagermeister]

Believe me, I grasp what they went through, having to deal not only with today's joyless and trying atmosphere of paranoia when it comes to air travel, but in the midst of ghastly weather. Then to have to wait for hours in line because the stadium doors were malfunctioning, to finally get up to the head of the line with anticipation building the entire time, and be turned away because there is no seating. Then getting forced to watch tv outside the stadium in that same freezing, miserable weather.

I get all that, and who wouldn't? And I agree the league should pay up for it, compensating for travel expenses, including accommodations. But something is very, very off when you look at the numbers. The firm representing the ticket holders is asking for 5 million or so. OK, but $5,000,000 divided by 400 comes out to only $12,500 per person, providing the lawyers don't take a cut. HUH? It just doesn't add up when you figure that some folks must have spent far more than that in the first place.

So just whom exactly, is being served by this suit? It certainly doesn't appear to be the ticket holders, and this is what I mean by an "ambulance-chasing exercise."

I agree. That dollar amount is silly. It will be fun to see what happens.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

There's really two different numbers here, from what I understand....

400 is the amount of customers who got no seat at all... Those are the people that got 3x face value, airfare, hotel, plus tickets to another SB....

There were another 800 that were moved to another location, but some of those locations didn't even have view of the field or the scoreboard.... Sitting in folding chairs, etc....

[chefcraig]

Yeah, the lawsuit is perplexing in that regard. From what I've read, the 400 are covered in the initial case, but what of the other 800 or so? If they are to be included as well, this would distort the numbers even greater. http://www.easyfreesmileys.com/smileys/free-confused-smileys-718.gif (http://www.easyfreesmileys.com/skype-emoticons.html)

[fifth element]

Not one of the fans was given a reach around while they were being phucked in the ass at the gate.

Free everything at the next game is a good way to pay off that debt.

i heard that they were offered free tickets to any SB in the next 10 years, plus a settlement that was already made...($2,000????)
It sounded as if, for something that got majorly fucked up, they made out pretty well...

I'll look around and see if i can come up w/ the info that was on the news the other day.

[fifth element]

http://nfl.fanhouse.com/2011/02/08/nfl-expands-options-for-fans-denied-seats-at-super-bowl-xlv/

The NFL continues to try to appease the approximately 400 fans who lost their seats the Super Bowl because a section of Cowboys Stadium was not completed before the game.

On Sunday, those fans -- who then watched the game on TVs in one of the stadium's clubs -- were given a letter stating that they would receive three times face value for their tickets, roughly $2,400.

But the NFL expanded on their offerings to the disgruntled fans Monday. In a statement released by the league, a pair of options were presented for those displaced fans. The first would give each fan one free ticket to next year's Super Bowl plus the $2,400 reimbursement for this year's ticket.

The second option comes with one free ticket to any future Super Bowl, plus round-trip airfare and hotel accommodations for the week of the game. However, that option does not include the $2,400 payment.

"We are ultimately responsible for the fan experience and we want it to be the best it can possibly be," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in the statement.

More than 1,200 fans were bumped from their reserved spaces Sunday, but 800 or so were provided other seats around Cowboys Stadium after NFL and Cowboys staff members gave up their seats. The remaining 400 were kept in a holding area for several hours while their situation was resolved. They were eventually led into the bowels of Cowboys Stadium and taken to a club section next to the Pittsburgh Steelers locker room.

There, the fans were given free food and drink, along with Super Bowl XLV merchandise, and they watched the game itself on TVs.

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this is what i had heard......

now they want more, more, more....

[Nitro Express]

You would have to be on a week long cocaine binge in a hotel room full of hookers to forget to complete part of the stadium before the Super Bowl. It's like they took the money, threw a big assed party and forgot the customer because they were too busy getting laid and high to remember that money was for some seats that needed to be built. When the Super Bowl starts to run like Washington DC, you know the country is fucked.:biggrin: