Posted on 03/25/2011 2:41:23 PM PDT by Libloather
Cleveland Browns fan sues over NFL lockout
By THOMAS J. SHEERAN, Associated Press
6 hours, 29 minutes ago
CLEVELAND (AP)—A Cleveland Browns fan sued the National Football league and its teams over the player lockout, claiming it violated his contract to buy tickets through his personal seat license.
Ken Lanci, a self-made millionaire who ran unsuccessfully last year for the top county government job in Cleveland, filed the lawsuit Thursday in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.
“It’s a fight between billionaires and millionaires,” Lanci said Friday in a phone interview. “There isn’t any sympathy for multi-millionaires. It’s just not going to happen. And somebody has to stand up and say, ‘Enough’s enough.’”
The lawsuit asked for damages of more than $25,000 from the Browns on both breach of contract and bad faith counts and more than $25,000 from the league and its teams for alleged contract interference.
**SNIP**
The lawsuit also asked for any additional unspecified damages that the court considers fair.
The case was assigned to Judge John P. O’Donnell. The league and teams have four weeks to respond in court.
Lanci claimed that the lockout denies him the right under the personal seat licenses to go to Browns games and has destroyed the value of the seat-license agreement.
The lawsuit claims the NFL and its teams have “conspired with the Browns and one another to lock out the players, without justification, resulting in the Browns’ breach of the PSL agreement.”
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
Well, at least his name will stay in the news, which should help in his next political race....
The rich get richer.
Welcome to Obamaland. :)
This idiot should be happy if there is a lockout and the NFL saves his the money and grief of seeing the Browns get their butts kicked in eight games).
I live in the Detroit area and a lockout wouldn’t bother me. No Lions - yeah!
He should probably wait until September to see if they actually miss a game.
The fan has a point. The PSL (and these things are worse than a Bernie Madoff scheme to begin with) has an intrinsic value that is damaged if there’s no professional football. Therefore, it isn’t just for emotional distress, etc. The NFL is intentionally killing the value of the man’s PSL by denying him the value to sell it to other pro football fans.
Instead of arguing, as most fan lawsuits do, that the fan is harmed by some vague value, the PSL has a set monetary value and thus loses value when there is no games to sell.
Motion sustained. Continue.
To be really effective, this kind of legal action needs to be elevated to a class action suit in which the team(s) and/or the NFL are exposed to $5,000-$15,000 in damages per litigant.
Since we're talking about some big money here, how about companies who paid for advertising during NFL games? How about the Networks who paid for rights to telecast the games? How about stadium vendors who can't sell $6 beers and $8 hot dogs?
Can the owners legally hire "scabs" (replacement players) to play the games? Fans would scream bloody murder and ticket sales would plummet, but they could argue in court that a game was held and there were no guarantees concerning quality of play...
What is he suing about, there hasn’t been a professional football team in Cleveland for the last ten years.
Sorry, couldn't resist. But you did get a knowing chuckle out of a lifetime Browns fan, and that status comes with an automatic complementary membership in the masochist club of my choice.
Oh no, it’s even better, I’m a lifelong Lions fan.
They did exactly that the last time the players went out on strike.
I certainly agree. Of course, the problem with class action lawsuits is that they are as big a fraud as the PSLs. The only ones who make any money off class action lawsuits are the lawyers. The plaintiffs get whatever change is in the attorney's sock drawer and 99% of the damages go to pay the lawyers. So there should be no shortage of sleazy lawyers lining up to help this plaintiff out in order to make sure that the bar winds up with most of the rewards.
The difference is that probably every contract involved with game tickets, game advertising, etc. is that there are contingencies written in if there is no game. I suspect that is not true of PSLs. They weren't around the last time the NFL had a strike/lockout.
I may be wrong about this, but the NFL television contracts all have some kind of language in them that lays out terms and conditions in the event of a strike or lockout. As for advertisers, I’m sure they don’t have to spend a dime on any ads in the event the games aren’t played.
ans responsible for NFL 100%, owners 0%.
Fans get 12% of Super Bowl tickets, celebrites get 88%.
Owners plan to start pay-for-view leaving most arm-chair-fans out in the cold.
Owners now show lots of games on the NFL Network which million of viewers don’t have.
Owners are allowed to move teams form town to town without concern for the fans.
Fans pay 1000% above the norm for concessions at arenas.
Let the owners know your concern. Unite now. Join the new, not-for-profit, organization “The NFL Fans Association” Help leave message. ‘nfl-pro-fan.com’
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