Major League Baseball is being sued by a pair of baseball fans who want refunds for tickets they bought to games that have been postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to USA Today, Matthew Ajzenman and Susan Terry-Bazer filed the lawsuit Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. MLB is a defendant along with commissioner Rob Manfred, the 30 teams, Stubhub, Ticketmaster, Live Nation and Last Minute Transactions.
“Baseball fans are stuck with expensive and unusable tickets for unplayable games in the midst of this economic crisis,” the lawsuit said. “Under the pretext of ‘postponing’ games, at the directive of MLB, teams are ticket merchants are refusing to issue refunds for games which are not going to be played as scheduled — if ever.
“The defendants continue to retain enormous profits from tickets sold for the 2020 MLB season at the expense of fans’ financial hardship.”
Ajzenman said he paid $317 of a $1,730 ticket plan for more than 20 New York Mets games, while Terry-Bazer paid Ticketmaster $926 for six tickets to a New York Yankees versus Boston Red Sox game. They both claim they were denied refunds. The MLB season was scheduled to begin March 26, but has been pushed back until at least mid-May due to the coronavirus outbreak.
“During an unprecedented crisis, while so many businesses have provided refunds for services that can’t be fulfilled it remains notable that baseball — America’s pastime — is forcing fans to take the loss on ticket sales,” attorney Glenn Phillips said, according to ESPN. “Millions of Americans are out of work right now and need access to the funds wrongfully withheld by MLB, MLB teams, and ticket merchants.”
The lawsuit, which claims the defendants have violated California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act and Unfair Competition Law, is asking for “full restitution, an accounting of all MLB tickets sold for the 2020 season (including season tickets, single game purchases, and public seat licenses), a declaratory judgment that defendants’ conduct of continuing to sell tickets for the 2020 MLB regular season violates California law, as well as a disgorgement of profits from tickets sold during the 2020 MLB season.”
