Major League Baseball has secured a win in court as claims brought by fans over alleged denied refunds due to COVID-19 have been dismissed.
U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer ruled on Tuesday that each of the six plaintiffs who bought a ticket directly from a team has received a full refund or credit.
“The single plaintiff who received a credit rather than a refund, Ajzenman, had the option of seeking a refund, but did not,” Judge Fischer said, according to Law360.
MLB was also successful in its argument that the court lacks personal jurisdiction over the 25 baseball teams based outside of California.
Judge Fischer said: “Because none of the out-of-state club games that plaintiffs bought tickets for was scheduled to be played in California, plaintiffs’ injury would have arisen even if none of the out-of-state clubs had games scheduled in California for the entire season. Consequently, the claims do not arise out of forum-related activities.”
The announcement comes after Fischer dismissed StubHub and Ticketmaster from the litigation last month with respect to those who had bought tickets directly from a MLB team. Fischer said a central claim was not supported by concrete evidence.
The original suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in April, claimed the league and the ticketing firms conspired together to maintain games were “postponed” despite the increasing chance that many or all of the games would not be rescheduled as a “pretext” to avoid handing over refunds.
MLB, its 30 franchises, Ticketmaster, Live Nation, Last Minute Transactions and its ticket resale partner StubHub were all named in the class action lawsuit by fans who were allegedly denied refunds after games were called off due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Image: Gabriel Argudo Jr / (CC BY 2.0) / Edited for size
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