An enterprising law firm saw a payday in Ticketmaster’s long-time policy of tacking on extra fees to tickets, so they came up with a convoluted class-action settlement that gives everyone who bought a ticket in the last 12 years a $1.50 credit on a new ticket. Along with probably millions of others, I got an email notification of this settlement yesterday. Reader Daniel was, rightly, incensed by this puny action, and he sent links to a Facebook group that opposes the settlement, as well as a objection filed by an attorney that contains this:
13) Under the proposed Settlement, Lead Class Counsel will be eligible to request and receive fees of up to fifteen million dollars ($15,000,000) in consideration for eight years of purported service toward negotiating a Settlement under which each Class member would receive an “award” which not only has no cash value, but is otherwise virtually useless to anyone but Defendant.
This is the key point in these do-nothing class actions. Some enterprising group of attorneys sees a nickel-and-dime corporate screw job. They construct a class action lawsuit to address it. Then they entice the corporation to accept a settlement by constructing a toothless remedy that can be represented as potential big payday. Once their settlement is accepted by the court, they collect millions of dollars.
In this case, the only way to collect on my Ticketmaster settlement is to buy another ticket. I’ll get $1.50 off of that ticket if I go through whatever baroque procedure will be required to collect my settlement. Ticketmaster still gets to sell me another ticket and collect its still hefty and profitable fee. Considering the few people who will actually bother to go through the nuisance required to get the $1.50, the only winners here are Ticketmaster, who immunized themselves, and the law firm of Alvarado Smith who dreamed up this whole scam.
A real remedy would have Ticketmaster cutting checks and sending them to everyone who bought a ticket. They do have all of our addresses, after all. But that would require actual litigation and risk on the part of Alvarado Smith, which might cut into their $15 million payday, and it might actually affect Ticketmaster’s bottom line. And Bieber knows we can’t accept potential damages to a free market engine of wealth creation like Tickemaster.
cathyx
Don’t get me started about the ticket buying process. It infuriates me that I can’t just buy a ticket directly from the source, and skip the middleman.
snoey
If you believe that the fees go directly to TM and the band only gets the face price of the ticket I need to talk to you about some exciting bridge investment opportunities.
Roger Moore
Actually, I expect that Bieber (and a lot of other musicians) knows that Ticketmaster is a blood sucking parasite that deserves to be destroyed and the ground salted where its headquarters used to be. Barring that, a nice Antitrust investigation by a not-completely-toothless FTC would be nice. Oh well, I can always dream.
cmorenc
The current legal system benefits few but:
a) the lawyers and judiciary;
b) corporations big enough to handle paying high-power law firms/lobbyists enough to overwhelm most individuals and small businesses who attempt to challenge their impositions.
As to the matter immediately at hand (Ticketmaster class-action), it’s extremely difficult to craft a legal framework which facilitates bona fide consumer-beneficial class action suits from ones which actually benefits consumers little and predatory law firms much. What usually results from efforts (legislative or judicially created) is to curtail dubious class-action suits are restrictions which choke off the beneficial with the superficial, and which immunize corporations from mal-behavior rather than make them more accountable.
Amir Khalid
As I recall Pearl Jam gave this company its true name 17 years ago: Ticketbastard.
Doesn’t this laughable settlement — a buck fifty off your next ticket, yay! — need to be approved by whomever is suing on behalf of the class? I can’t imagine a plaintiff with a genuine grievance agreeing to this.
Raven
If Irving Azoff has something to do with it you can bet it stinks.
Tokyokie
I got one of those e-mails, skimmed through it and deleted it. Next show I attend for which Ticketmaster is handling tickets, I’ll do it the honest way: buy a ticket from a scalper outside the arena.
Several years ago, back when there were record stores but not an Internet, I tried buying tickets to see Buckwheat Zydeco at a small club. Called up the record store to ask how much tickets were, but because of some weird Ticketmaster policy, they weren’t allowed to tell me the cost, with fees, of a ticket. And despite my pleading with them that unless I knew how much money to get out of the ATM (no credit-card sales on concert tickets back then) and insisting that I wouldn’t narc them out to the Ticketmaster cops, they steadfastly refused to inform.
So I drove 20 miles each way out to the club and bought them on site and didn’t pay the Ticketmaster vig. Fuck Ticketmaster. And fuck this settlement.
CalD
This was why I always thought congress ought to grant AT&T immunity from civil litigation in exchange for ratting out the Bush administration in the domestic wiretapping scheme. I’d have cheerfully exchanged the $0.75 check that I may get someday for seeing someone actually go to jail for that.
Southern Beale
Wow. I should have received that notice, I’ve bought tons of tickets from TicketLoser.
Yeah these class action suits are such a fucking waste of time. I remember being part of that huge airline class action, years ago — you know, how they all colluded to fix airline prices? And what did we get? Coupons for $15, $25, etc. that could never be used except under some very precise circumstances. But you could only use one coupon at a time, and to save $15 it was never worth it to jump through all of the hoops.
But yeah the attorneys got their millions. I’m glad to see consumers push back against this BS.
And as for Ticketmaster, a crooked monopoly if ever there was one, a couple years ago I wrote a post called “If Ticketmaster Ran Our Healthcare System.” I think it’s a very apt comparison to the flawed thinking that the profit motive works in the service sector.
Mark S.
That of course will never happen, but class action suits are often just a failure of regulation. For maybe once in my life, I’m curious what the dipshits at reason think of this. Do they think class action suits are a good way of preventing such abuses? They surely would hate to have to admit that government regulation might be needed.
Oh I know, you just wait around for a competitor to Ticketmaster to come around and not nickel and dime you. Or you do a McMegan by going full corporate whore and say that Ticketmaster provides a service no one else can do and you always found them great.
Warren Terra
That’s pretty ballsy right there: instead of any sort of attempt at settlement, Ticketmaster wins a marketing opportunity. Any judge that approved this settlement needs to really think about why they want to be a judge.
Jerzy Russian
@Tokyokie:
In graduate school many years ago my advisor complained about similar practices with companies that sold various high tech equipment. There was never a straightforward listing of the prices involved, which made ordering with grant money more difficult. This practice might make sense if your entire market consists of 20 research labs around the country, but for the life of me I don’t see how it makes sense for Ticketmaster unless the prices they charge are high. I guess that is the point.
ABL
Ah Alvarado Smith. I used to work there. Can’t really say much more about it. Condition of my severance, and all. ::snicker::
Southern Beale
@Warren Terra:
Isn’t that how these things always work, though? Everybody wins! Except consumers, and who cares about them? They’re just rubes to be fleeced.
suzanne
My husband and I refer to all the extra BS you have to pay as the “lubrication fees”. Assholes.
I just bought two tickets for a concert in January. The extra fees ended up adding 40% onto the final total. I even had to pay $2 per ticket to print the tickets out myself at home.
Pave Your Pants
@snoey:
Two things:
First, having been a “professional” musician in my past, let me agree with snoey that when it comes to the music business, you’re not really doing a whole lot, in terms of putting cash in their pockets, for performing artists when you buy a concert ticket.
Sure, bigger name artists who have records that chart regularly might be making a decent guarantee for live performances, and the biggest of the big names can do very well from guaranteed tour packages when they get advances from promoters.
But musicians make their bread and butter from merchandise sales. For the vast majority, guaranteed money for showing up and playing the gig basically pays for gas and or travel expenses to get to the next gig – maybe.
So, buy the tickets, go to the show, but if you really want to appreciate and support your favorite band/musician, buy a t-shirt/hoodie/CD/whatever from their merch tables. This is especially true as respects the smaller-scale peeps playing theatres and clubs. The venues sometimes take a cut, which can be painful, and I’ve seen some violence occur related to that, but by and large musicians keep nearly all the revenue from merch.
Second, in my illustrious (ahem) second career post music biz, I have had a chance to work with lawyers on a regular basis (lucky me). While obviously not all of them are greedy egotistical asshole scammers, and I would not even say a majority nor even a plurality, a whole mess of lawyers are greedy egotistical asshole scammers.
Stuff like this ends up adding costs to doing business that get passed on to regular Joes and Janes in the long run, in a lot of ways which most of us will never even notice.
Thanks for nothing, assholes. Pearl Jam had this right back in the day, but that was Quixotic at best.
Southern Beale
@suzanne:
Yes, the “convenience fee.” I love that. Who is being convenienced here? I buy a computer, a printer, toner ink, my own paper. I pay the electricity to power all of these doo-dads. Ticketmaster does what exactly?
As I said in my post, what would really be convenient is if Ticketmaster delivered the tickets to my door accompanied by a box of chocolates and bottle of champagne.
Pave Your Pants
@Warren Terra:
Don’t know that the judge deserves the ire. I don’t think the judge would be likely to understand the economics of the music business very well, and trust me, there is NO ONE involved in this suit who would want the judge to understand the mechanics very well. The more both plaintiff and defendant keep the judge at the 50,000 foot level, the better off they both would be. The music biz is an onion that almost no one really wants to start peeling. Again, see: Jam, Pearl
pseudonymous in nc
The horrific thing is that Ticketbastard basically has a monopoly on the infrastructure and backend to do any kind of high-volume ticket sales. On the other hand, the fee-grubbing bullshit isn’t a given: the London Olympics used Ticketbastard for its ticket sales this year, but made sure that there were no additional fees other than a (non-ripoff) delivery charge.
(Whenever I get those occasional class action settlement emails, I check first to see how much the lawyers are getting, and it’s a good indication of precisely what kind of fuck-all will be coming the way of the affected parties. Small government ideologues seem to think that litigation produces better outcomes than regulation, but that’s obviously untrue.)
bjacques
That should have been a fine, not an award, with the fine going to the regulatory body that levied it. Very useful to a cash-starved agency. The lawyers be damned.
Jerzy Russian
@suzanne:
That is a good one. I will try to remember that for future use.
Paris
@suzanne: Same here. TM keeps accessing yet another web page, each adding a different charge until I had to pay 36 bucks for 25 dollar tickets. Charges include the ‘convenience fee’ then a ‘order processing’ fee and then I had to pay to print them myself because shipping them to me was about another fifteen bucks.
Dr. Squid
The difference between bank robbers and these nickel-and-dime class action lawyers is that the bank robbers don’t pretend that they’re doing it for our own good.
eemom
instead of bitching and moaning on a blog, you people ought to get behind whoever is filing the objection quoted above and make sure it actually does get heard, loud and clear, in the “fairness hearing” which is required before the judge can approve the settlement.
And if the judge is actually fool enough to approve the deal after that — which is unlikely — you appeal.
The system CAN work — but it takes actual, you know, WORK.
eemom
also too, I love this: the same idiots who excoriated the Supreme Court in the Walmart case for supposedly eviscerating the class action remedy are now here to tell us how worthless it is anyway.
There really is something to be said for knowing your shit before you run your mouth. Y’all should try it sometime.
300baud
@eemom:
Thank goodness you took time to bitch and moan on a blog about bitching and moaning on a blog. I’m sure our lives are all richer for you saying something obvious in a fashion that suggests you’re revealing hidden truth from a morally superior position.
Roger Moore
@suzanne:
Except I don’t think Ticketmaster wants to lubricate your asshole before making use of it.
eemom
@300baud:
and thank goodness you took the time to respond with a substance-free sneer that highlights your utter ignorance of the topic at hand.
Donut
Yes, this is totally practical. You are awesome for laying down the law. Preach on! Testify! Schoolin’ the fools, cuz that’s just how you roll!
You are a turd.
Roger Moore
@Southern Beale:
Controls a monopoly on booking desirable venues, which obviously justifies their charging outrageous fees. After all, if there weren’t a monopoly, people would have to figure out a whole bunch of different confusing ticket buying systems. Even worse, somebody might design a simple, cheap system, or one that screwed over
scalpersticketborkersbrokers, or something else like that. Obviously we can’t let that happen.eemom
@Donut:
Oh, so now the excuse is that it is “impractical” to stand up for your rights?
Tell that to the Occupiers, you fucking moron.
Roger Moore
@pseudonymous in nc:
Depends on what results you’re after. If your goal is to let big business run wild while letting people think they have some hope of keeping it in check, watered down litigation is far better than regulation. That’s why
big businesssmall government conservatives like it so much. It’s only if you hope to keep big business in check that regulations are worth anything.eemom
@Roger Moore:
are you kidding me?
“Small government conservatives” championing litigation as a means of controlling corporations? WHERE??
The anti-regulation fucktards are the SAME fucktards slandering “trial lawyers” and advocating for “tort reform”. They are against ANY check of ANY kind on corporate greed.
Warren Terra
@Pave Your Pants:
This isn’t about any sort of specialized knowledge of the music business. It’s about a settlement of the dispute in which Ticketmaster is required to make some sort of recompense to its customers … and it is able to do so exclusively by means of offering a discount on future business with Ticketmaster. By means of offering a discount coupon that frankly they’d likely be eager to give away if it meant drumming up a little more business. You don’t need any knowledge of “the music business” to realize that Ticketmaster is a huge winner here – along with the lawyers who purport to represent the plaintiffs and are colluding with Ticketmaster, of course.
Pave Your Pants
Promoters book venues. Some venues are owned by promoters, but the vast majority are not. The venues most likely to be owned by promoters are part of bigger companies – Live Nation, for example, is one of those, and Live Nation recently merged with Ticketmaster.
Ticketsmaster does not necessarily book the venues in terms of finding artists to play, but again, that has changed since they merged with Live Nation. Like I said, start peeling the onion, and it gets complicated.
Live Nation is now in a lot of cases like a one-stop that handles functions that in the past were spread out among many players, many of them small business. It’s sad how many people who really have love of music have been squeezed out in the last ten years or so.
Anyway, promoters typically put together packages that are sold to venues. They set a base ticket price for each market, which to some extent is market driven. But then Ticketmaster adds the fees on top of that price. None of that money goes to the artists, the venues, or the promoters (again, unless it’s a vertically integrated situation), as has been mentioned. Obviously, the bigger the artist, the more vertically integrated the packages usually are.
Still, Ticketmaster in most places, meaning where they are not an owner in a venue, are simply a distributor of tickets. Which means that can hose you all day long. Others have indeed tried and failed to compete with them. ff you want to starve Ticketmaster, whenever you can, you should physically go to the venue to buy your tix. Not feasible for most people, but that is reality.
Pave Your Pants
@Warren Terra:
I’m not saying you’re wrong. I totally agree with you. I am just saying that unless the judge really digs into the mechanics of the industry, they are not going to understand the settlement that they are approving. Judges can be mis-lead, yes? Again, no one in this case has any interest in helping the judge understand the music business, and where you and I maybe disagree is that it would help produce a favorable result from the judge, if that person had a good understanding of the industry.
If they did, the settlement might look a lot different. That’s the point I was trying to make. Sorry if I was not clearer about that.
That said, I don’t know why you chose to put “the music business” in quotes that way. It is an industry that has rules and established modes of conduct that are unique to itself. It is a stand-alone industry, and it is appropriate to refer to it that way, the same way one would refer to any other business sector.
eemom
@Pave Your Pants:
uh, I hate to break this to you, but judges are called upon every day to understand the “mechanics” of industries of all kinds, as well as all kinds of other obscure stuff.
You can’t adjudicate ANYTHING without understanding the facts, however convoluted they may be. Judges are not there to be obedient rubber stamp tools for clever lawyers. And believe it or not, most of them are NOT.
Mart
I just got me a whopping $18.38 on an excessive foreign currency transaction fee class action settlement. When you get real money like that, you know the millions that went to the lawyers was worth it. See you bitches on the way to the bank.
Pave Your Pants
Fucking A, tough crowd. You are really picking a fight with someone who agrees with you. All I said was 1) it’s a complicated business and 2) the result would be better for consumers and artists if the lawyers took care to explain the fucking music business.
Good fuckkng god, eemom. Step down from the high horse.
You are not “breaking” anything to anyone, though I wonder if you’re on the verge of aneurism.
How about this: I hate to break it to you, but judges don’t always get accurat facts put in front of them, and sometimes that can contribute to bad decisions, and to pretend otherwise is stupid and naive.
Sorry I even bothered to offer my perspective. I’m out, and you are pointlessly being an asshole.
Have a great day, doing whatever it is that is causing you to be unnecessarily confrontational.
Anonymous At Work
Question: How long had the suit been going on? If only a year or two, the attorney fees are outrageous enough to contest. If, on the other hand, this firm had been working 5 years on the suit and settlement, then it becomes a bit more fair.
eemom
@Pave Your Pants:
Sorry. What makes me confrontational is ignorant idiocy of the kind some have displayed on this thread, exacerbated by the way in which some of them seem to glory in it. And it happens on most threads here that talk about legal issues.
An attitude like “all judges are tools of the corporatocracy” is a typical example of what I am talking about. Now that you have elaborated I see that is not what you were saying, so I apologize for having misconstrued.
Catsy
@Southern Beale:
This is one of the customer-screwing euphemisms I most despise in business. It’s especially outrageous when they’re charging this fee for you to go online and pay, but NOT when you pay by mail or talk to a phone representative.
That’s when you know, for a fact, that the company is fucking you and lying about why: when they charge you for the option that is quickest and most convenient but costs them next to nothing, while not charging you for the slower and less convenient options that have more overhead costs. Yes, servers and bandwidth cost money, but it’s a fraction of what it costs for them to pay wages at and maintain a (usually outsourced) call center.
low-tech cyclist
Here’s the solution (to bogus class actions, not TicketBastard):
Pass a law requiring the law firm to take their payment in the same coin that the rest of the settlement was in.
If the members of the class get cash on the barrel, then so would the law firm. If the members of the class get circumscribed-use coupons, then the law firm would get coupons in the same denominations, circumscribed in the same manner.
If such a rule applied to this case, the lawyers would get their $15 million payday in the form of 10 million coupons for $1.50 off their next TicketBastard purchase. And it would serve them right.
Ruckus
I’ve gotten a number of these types of settlement notices over the last few years and I always check the lawyers fees first thing. The second thing I try to do is figure out the objection side and join that. Fuck a bunch of asshole lawyers making millions screwing consumers. And that’s what this is. In this case ticketbastard will/already have, raise prices to cover all the costs involved. And who do you think pays for that? Everyone who uses ticketbastard. And it’s not that the concept of the suit(s) is not a good thing, it’s the execution of the suit(s) that enriches the asshole lawyers (who are doing such good work!) and fixes nothing, that sucks.
VOR
There was a lawsuit in Minnesota a few years ago where the realtor was representing both the seller and the buyer, creating an obvious potential conflict of interest. Dual representation is legal in MN, provided it is disclosed.
The resolution was that the lawyers got millions of dollars in cash. The members of the class got coupons they could use to sell their next home with that realtor. As if someone who thinks they got screwed out of potentially tens of thousands of dollars will ever use that realtor again.
BBA
@eemom: It’s more a Rubinite neoliberal position. The thinking is that regulators are often captured by industry or simply incompetent, so instead the victims of corporate wrongdoing should have the power to prosecute the corporations. There’s a point to this – witness the Minerals Management Service’s spectacular failure to regulate BP – but as this story shows, class actions are a lousy substitute for proper regulation.
I thought the crash of 2008 proved neoliberalism doesn’t work, but somehow it’s still the Very Serious position on regulatory policy.
burnspbesq
@Donut:
You wouldn’t know a turd if it jumped out of the toilet and kissed you on the mouth.
You have no idea what you’re talking about. At any time. On any subject.
E is exactly right. If you’re a member of the plaintiff class, and you don’t like the deal, object. Otherwise, you have no hope of actually changing Ticketmaster’s behavior. And you have no standing to whine.
AA+ Bonds
Occupy Ticketmaster
AA+ Bonds
By which I mean, do everything you can to fuck up ticket sales, steal, scalp, etc. because that shit is nasty. It’s the only good idea and it’s your moral duty.
eemom
@BBA:
The fact is that effective regulation — i.e, preventing the injury from occurring in the first place — and an effective remedy for injury that has already occurred, are both necessary, and it is absurd to treat one as a substitute for the other.
Notwithstanding all the abuses, class actions really CAN be effective when they are used properly.
This is one of the reasons the reaction to the Walmart decision pissed me off — because, as vile as the conservative wing of the Supreme Court is, the outcome in that case was not their fault. It was the fault of the plaintiffs’ attorneys who went forward with a ridiculously broad class definition that they MUST have known would never be upheld. Whatever motivated their decision to go that route, I can assure you that serving the best interests of their clients had ZERO to do with it.
@burnspbesq:
thanks burnsy.
burnspbesq
@VOR:
Everybody has an anecdote about a stupid class action settlement. I’m still waiting for one of you to make a concrete suggestion about how to fix the system. I’d even take “tear it out by the roots and start over,” as long as it’s accompanied by a description of a replacement system that has a snowball’s chance in hell of consistently producing better outcomes for consumers.
Sophia
Cameron’s Objection makes for an amusing read but I’m afraid he was too busy making snarky comments to notice the most objectionable part of this proposed settlement: it does nothing to prevent Ticketmaster from continuing the complained of behavior. The non-economic terms of the settlement require Ticketmaster to make changes to the language of its disclosure. It provides that:
The language of the changes to the Website has been left to Ticketmaster’s reasonable discretion and may be changed again by Ticketmaster in the future to suit its business needs
Perhaps a member of the California bar can clarify this, but it seems to me that in the absence of a finding that Ticketmaster has violated California statute with its current labeling practices there is nothing stopping Ticketmaster from reverting to less than full disclosure “to suit its business needs” under this settlement.
Additionally, I reviewed the Third Amended Complaint the other day and had the impression that the anti-trust arguments were more emotional padding than a genuine legal claim. I don’t know Cali law, but it seemed like the meat of the claim is that Ticketmaster committed fraud and gained unearned income for services not actually performed. Making Cameron’s decision to assert “ha ha, I assumed you guys were ripping me off the entire time!” a questionable strategy.
I could write more, but this comment is already too long. I’ve considered filing an objection to this as well and am disappointed in Cameron’s effort in terms of saving myself the trouble.
Matt
@Sophia:
Sophia:
Fair critique. I drafted this all in one angry night after I received the email with the terms of settlement. I intended it more as an opening shot, to be further (and more seriously) briefed sometime before the 2/19 deadline. While the core arguments are completely serious (and made in the best of faith), I was also writing to be read.
I completely share your concerns about the complete absence of any deterrent effect, and (in my defense), did include it as grounds in my objection, which I’ll excerpt here:
F. The Settlement is wholly insufficient to provide a plausible deterrent against future unfair and deceptive business practices by Defendant.
14) It is apparent from prior filings in these proceedings that Defendant has knowingly and intentionally taken over $100 million from consumers over the course of the Class Period simply by abusing its monopoly over the American ticketing industry and openly misrepresenting the nature of its Order Processing Fee. Although it is plainly obvious that this money properly belongs to the Class, and not the Defendant, the Settlement is in no way structured or designed to reflect this basic fact. Regardless, absent proper punitive damages Defendant has no clear disincentive against introducing even subtler and more predatory ways to arbitrarily part music fans from their money.
—
I then went on to suggest $100 million in charitable donations as a punitive measure. I likely should have also requested direct injunctive relief as you have suggested, but the point of these objections is really more to keep the settlement as proposed from going through than to come up with new terms. (Of course, given the opportunity I just couldn’t help myself.)
Anyway, I strongly encourage you to draft and file your own objection. CA law specifically requires the court to account for the *number* of objectors who file when assessing the suitability of the settlement, so it seems we’re actually better off with dozens of snarky/disappointing filings than one really good one.
eemom
@Sophia:
@Matt:
Great to hear this dialogue, brings hope to my jaded old heart. Please, both of you, go on fighting the good fight.
Mike G
@Mart:
Word. Except you forgot, “Murka, fuck yeah!” and “I’m gonna be rich someday!”
I just cashed mine, after waiting four years for a settlement. I’ll go party with supermodels on my yacht in Monaco with that sweet payout.
Kyle
@Catsy:
Whenever I see this, I make a point of paying by check and/or calling and tying up their phone reps for a long drawn-out conversation, even when I’d rather pay by credit card online. If corporations are sleazy enough to charge me a premium for using their lowest-cost means of collecting payment, then I want to make it as expensive for them as possible.
That, and mailing back empty the postage-paid envelope that comes with the solitictation for a Wall Street Journal subscription I get almost weekly.
Sophia
Matt, forgive my grumpy lawyer notes. Your Objection is funny as hell (and your cited musical taste impeccable), a great piece of writing, but substantively it read as a generic objection to everything wrong with coupon settlements that helped motivate class action reform.
I need to dig into the Cali law a bit more, but my current impression is that the plaintiffs don’t have much of a case. Certifying as a class, sure. But not much past that. I wouldn’t press for different settlement terms. I’d press for a trial. Because if the plaintiffs can successfully argue this practice is illegal under Cali law then it seems to me the benefits would be farther reaching than some silly coupon settlement. At this time, I don’t think they could make that case. Which means that no matter how obnoxious I find Ticketmaster’s practices, this suit is basically a fancy game of chicken.
When I got the email notification and looked at some of the docs, I didn’t know if I should burn my bar card or ask Plaintiffs’ counsel for a job. I don’t have much faith remaining in how our legal system is supposed to work. But it’s a lovely idea. I’d like to think that a class action could be used to attack Ticketmaster’s anti-competitive business model. But as the remedies you outlined demonstrate, in their hilarious contrast to the remedies offered by Plaintiffs’ counsel, I don’t think the people running this litigation are really working that angle.
Matt
@Sophia:
Thanks! I was fully expecting some criticism, and everything you’ve said is fair comment. No worries.
This is probably because I don’t know much more about class actions than I picked up in my 1L civ pro class (I am but a humble immigration attorney) and am generally just offended by the concept of partial-credit coupon settlements. (Also, I gather that CA hasn’t had a proper state-level class action reform, at least not anything like what the federal courts saw in 2005.) But my research since filing confirms my initial suspicions that this seems to have all the hallmarks of a “bad” coupon settlement (to the extent that there can be a “good” coupon settlement) under CA law, and that plaintiffs’ counsel has every reason to know that. As you may know, the court previously rejected a proposed settlement in this case earlier this year on the grounds that it didn’t provide enough for class members and didn’t have a solid backup cy pres (California courts do seem to love their cy pres) provision to guarantee that TM would pay something whether or not the vouchers were used. In further briefing, I intend to point out why the court should not be satisfied with what the parties have presented on either point.
That was my thinking, yes. Maybe I was a little too obtuse about this, but I’m pretty sure that TM would rather spend years in further litigation than give us all free tickets, handles of Jack, and the satisfaction of knowing that Wilco and Bruce Springsteen have forever been released from their bonds of servitude.
Anyway, this has been fun. Please feel free to join the FB group if you want to keep in touch on this…
mere mortal
Doesn’t the class action have the additional real benefit of curtailing the bad behavior which caused the suit originally? In this case, apparently excessive and deceptive “expediting fees.”
Why isn’t that a good thing, that a law firm can step in and cause bad corporate behavior to stop where authorities do not act?
Matt
@mere mortal:
Class actions often do have a deterrent effect, but this seems far less likely here:
(1) TM is explicitly permitted to continue charging the same fees, but now must explain to customers that it is about to rip them off at the point of purchase. Not so helpful.
(2) Although the parties estimate in their joint filing that it would “cost” TM $255 million if everyone in the class used all of their vouchers, this is a ridiculous and illusory number. Not only is there only going to be a very marginal use of the vouchers, but the “cost” of a relative handful of consumers getting 17% off their next convenience fee is far less in real terms than the cost of having to pay out actual cash.
(3) The charitable donations which will be required if not enough people use the vouchers are a nice thought, but hardly a deterrent. They will be made in the form of 75% tickets, 25% cash, and all of the fees will be included in the “full retail value” of the tickets. This will allow TM to dump tickets to events that aren’t selling well and take a write-off on the full value.