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A little more than nine months after those aggrieved ticketholders left out in the Arlington cold during Super Bowl XLV brought their lawsuits, U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn — she of tough sentences and no nonsense — has refused to dismiss the breach-of-contract case. But: Lynn did remove the Dallas Cowboys and Jerry Jones from the suit. She writes, “The fact that the Super Bowl was held at Cowboys Stadium and that Jerry Jones stated afterwards that he accepted responsibility for the seating problems does not mean that the Cowboys Defendants became parties to a contract between the NFL and the Plaintiffs.” The ticketholders have three weeks to prove her wrong.
So, for now, the face-off involves those who didn’t get to sit where they shoulda — broken down into three parties referred to as the “Obstructed View Group,” the “Relocated/Delayed Group” and the “Displaced Group” — and the National Football League, which offered to make good but not good enough for fans who just wanted what they paid for. Writes Lynn:
At this stage in the litigation, the breach of contract claim against the NFL cannot be determined as a matter of law. There is no proof in the record that the offers of compensation were in fact sent to the individual Plaintiffs or to other class members. Furthermore, the issue of what recoverable damages the Plaintiffs actually suffered cannot be determined based upon the pleadings alone. If Plaintiffs prevail on their contract claim, they will be entitled to damages that the law allows, unlimited by the statement of remedy on the ticket.
Read the whole thing after the jump.
