It’s baked into each and every Ticketmaster purchase: Customers scrambling to buy tickets to the most sought-after concerts, sports games or other live events must first check a box agreeing to the company’s “Terms of Use.”
If a buyer took the time to click through the hyperlink that accompanies the box, they’d see what has become Ticketmaster’s tried-and-true defense to lawsuits: boilerplate legalese requiring customers with ticketing beefs to forgo their rights to sue and instead seek to resolve their claims through private arbitration.
Ticketmaster’s arbitration clause — deemed enforceable under a federal appeals court ruling in February — repeatedly has been used to fend off scores of potential class-action lawsuits against the ticket giant and its corporate parent, the events promoter Live Nation.
But in a recent court filing, four customers trying to keep their class-action case alive allege the companies have recently rigged the arbitration process against ticket buyers.
The argument, filed by a California man, an Ohio woman and two Florida residents, claims Ticketmaster quietly switched last year to an all-virtual, expedited arbitration process that amounts to a “Kafkaesque procedure” for customers.
The process, handled by a startup, New Era ADR, stifles customers’ due process rights by restricting evidence, prohibiting discovery and allowing arbitrators to rule on multiple customers’ claims at once without even holding hearings, lawyers for the plaintiffs allege.
The changes — made amid mounting legal complaints — are so “unconscionable” that the Federal Arbitration Act, which protects valid arbitration procedures, shouldn’t apply, they claim.
If it’s successful, the plaintiffs’ argument would advance their case — Skot Heckman, et al v. Live Nation — toward getting class-action status, potentially allowing hundreds of other fed-up ticket customers to join the lawsuit.
It also could provide a blueprint to get…
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