A lawsuit claiming the NFL American football league’s ticketing policies for the 2014 Super Bowl breached state consumer protection laws has been reopened after a ruling on Friday.
Josh Finkelman, who filed the lawsuit after he claimed he spent $2,000 (£1,496/€1,696) per ticket on the secondary market, instead of the $800 face value cost, because the NFL only released one per cent of the tickets to the public through a lottery.
The ruling stated that Finkelman “alleged sufficient factual allegations to show that Defendants’ withholding raised the price that he paid for tickets on the secondary market.”
When the suit was filed in New Jersey in 2014, a lower court had ruled that the defendant’s claims had no standing to bring the lawsuit. The 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals handed a preliminary victory to New Brunswick resident Finkelman on Friday.
New Jersey’s Supreme Court is set to review the case, the 3rd Circuit judges wrote on Friday, after which it could be taken to trial.
Attorney Bruce Nagel, who is representing Finkelman, said the NFL “violated the ticket sales law of New Jersey and now will be liable for hundreds of millions in damages.”
An NFL spokesman said in an email on Friday that the league’s policies didn’t run afoul of the law.
“We remain confident that the NFL’s distribution of tickets to Super Bowl XLVIII complied with New Jersey law – a position that the District Court in New Jersey has agreed with on two separate occasions – and look forward to presenting that position before the New Jersey Supreme Court,” spokesman Brian McCarthy said.
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