[aeneas1]

Fans vs. Goliath

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/67208330/when-fans-sue-courts-always-favor-the-leagues

When owner Georgia Frontiere picked up her Los Angeles Rams and moved them east to St. Louis in 1995, Larry Charpentier sued, claiming the team had breached its contract with season ticket holders. In his suit, Charpentier, who originally filed suit under the name "Fight for the Rams," alleged that since 1946, the team had granted every season ticket holder the right to renew his tickets in the subsequent year -- even when the team moved from Los Angeles to Anaheim. However, when they transplanted to St. Louis, this right was denied despite the fact that the season ticket renewal form stated in part, "YOUR SEASON RESERVATION IS VALUABLE. You have the privilege to renew reserved seat locations for the upcoming season."

Charpentier stated he did not purchase his tickets "with the intent of watching a poor performing football team play for the 1994 season, only to have the team leave at the end of the year. Instead, [he] purchased [his seat] merely to 'reserve' the seat location of [his] season tickets in the future when [he] hoped that [the Rams] would provide a quality professional football team product."

Unfortunately, the court didn't see it that way and dismissed the case. In the court's opinion, several obvious -- and frankly, disturbing -- conclusions were reached. For one, "Just because a team has played for years in a particular location and has always done something a particular way does not mean that it must always do so." The court also wrote that Charpentier "did not buy the right to watch a good team or to have enlightened (in his opinion) management decisions made." And though the court admitted, "It is common knowledge that professional sports franchisees have a sordid history of arrogant disdain for the consumers of the product," the final ruling stated that Charpentier's recourse was limited to a personal decision to "give up on the team when he felt it had given up on him."