THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 6, 1996 TAG: 9606060341
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BLOOMBERG BUSINESS NEWS
DATELINE: ST. LOUIS LENGTH: 34 lines
Ticketmaster Corp. said a federal court judge has dismissed a class-action suit that claimed that the largest distributor of live entertainment tickets kept prices artificially high.
The case, a consolidation of 16 class-action suits, was dismissed by the Eastern District of U.S. District Court in St. Louis. Judge Stephen Limbaugh said there was no legal ground for the suit, which claimed that Ticketmaster's practices were anti-consumer, according to Ticketmaster.
``The ruling should bar future complaints of this nature,'' Ticketmaster official Ned Goldstein said. Goldstein is senior vice president and general counsel of the St. Louis-based company.
Steve Berman, an attorney with Hagnes & Berman in Seattle who represents the consumers who filed the suit, said he will appeal. ``We think the judge's decision was flatly and unquestionably wrong,'' he said.
Berman said the suit was dismissed in part because, the judge said, it should have been submitted by the owners of the concert venues - not by consumers. Berman said consumers suffer from higher prices, however.
The dismissal comes almost a year after the Justice Department dropped its investigation, saying the department needed to assess new competition in the market for tickets.
The Justice Department decision was criticized by the rock group Pearl Jam and consumer advocates who said that Ticketmaster's fees and exclusive contracts with the country's largest sports and concert venues put ticket prices beyond the reach of many concert-goers. by CNB