The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed the ruling of a district court, dismissing the claims of four plaintiffs who purchased tickets to the Super Bowl, and then sued the National Football League (NFL) and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club, LTD after the tickets were less than advertised.
The ticketholders, who sought in excess of $5 million in damages, claimed they were either denied seats; delayed in gaining pre-game access to their seats; relocated to lesser quality seats; and/or had obstructed views.
There were hundreds to thousands of other ticketholders who suffered a similar fate, but they accepted reimbursement offers made by the NFL.
The district court dismissed their claim, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6).
The plaintiffs challenged that order, claiming that they properly pleaded tort, statutory fraud and punitive damage claims, which meet the threshold requirements for diversity jurisdiction.
The Third Circuit was unmoved.
While conceding that the appellants “have exercised a great deal of creativity in construing their claims as sounding in tort and statutory fraud,” it wrote that “the inescapable fact is that the entire suit is grounded in their purchase of tickets, commonly regarded as revocable licenses, to a sporting event. The tickets created all of the obligations and duties owed by the NFL to the appellants (as assignees of Pittsburgh Steelers Sports, Inc.). The essence of the suit is that the appellants suffered damages because the NFL did not fulfill its obligation to give them access to particular seats during the 2011 Super Bowl game, as specified on their tickets. The contracts are inseparable from their claims.
“The NFL concedes that the tickets were valid contracts and that it did not provide the appellants with the seats referenced on their tickets.
“There is no evidence that the Dallas Cowboys Football Club, LTD. had any part in the sale of the tickets to the appellants. Accordingly, there is no basis to claim that they breached any duties owed to the appellants arising from the tickets.”
The panel concluded that, “in spite of the appellants’ efforts to express their claims as negligent misrepresentation against the NFL and the Dallas Cowboys Football Club, LTD., these disputes sound in contract. Moreover, their contention that the NFL engaged in fraudulent misrepresentation and fraudulent inducement are based upon, essentially, the same acts as the negligence counts, and their assertions of injury and pleas for relief inextricably arise from the alleged breach of the contracts at issue. The district court ruled that the appellants had a remedy in contract law for any actual and consequential monetary losses. We agree. The district court properly dismissed all of these claims.
“Our analysis is the same for their assertion that the National Football League violated Pennsylvania’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law. 73 Pa. Stat. § 201-1 to -9.3. The cause is entwined in the contracts between the parties, which, in turn, are the bases for any entitlement to damages. Cloaking the claim as statutory fraud does not alter our conclusion that the district court did not err by dismissing it.
“Finally, without any legitimate basis to assert punitive damages, attorney’s fees, treble damages, or additional compensation for losing a ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ to view the sporting event from their promised seats, the pleadings do not provide any reasonable means for each the appellant to plead contractual damages that meet the jurisdictional threshold. 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). The district court appropriately assessed the appellants’ losses to be far below the statutory minimum and this reasonably grounded its decision to dismiss.”
Richard Pollock et al. v. National Football League et al.; 3rd Cir.; No. 13-1987, 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 2465; 2/10/14
Attorneys of Record: (for plaintiffs/appellants) Paul L. Kutcher, Esq., Brandon, FL. (for NFL defendant/appellee) Richard T. Behrens, Esq., Daniel H. Gold, Esq., Jeremy D. Kernodle, Esq., Haynes & Boone, Dallas, TX; Charles B. Gibbons, Esq., Klett, Rooney, Lieber & Schorling, Pittsburgh, PA; Brian H. Simmons, Esq., Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, Pittsburgh, PA. (for Dallas Cowboys Football Club, LTD, defendant/appellee) James V. Corbelli, Esq., Babst, Calland, Clements & Zomnir, Pittsburgh, PA; David W. Dodge, Esq., Paul A. Grinke, Esq., McCathern, Dallas, TX.
