Only One of Four Rams-Related Lawsuits Settled

In writing the recent post introducing the Sunday Poll I goofed. A readers comment left on the Facebook link explains my mistake:

You are mixing up 2 different lawsuits.

The lawsuit you referenced in 2017 is St. Louis City, St. Louis County and the Regional Convention and Sports Authority against the NFL for Breach of Contract for not being honest in their statements as the plans for a new stadium were being developed.

That lawsuit is still quite a while from any determination.

The lawsuit settled this week was a class action lawsuit of Rams Personal Seat License Owners vs. the Rams alone, claiming they had the rights to buy tickets for 30 years. Since the Rams left after 21 years, they asked for their money back and/or the right to buy seats at the new Rams stadium in LA.

The settlement in this suit was the Rams paying back 30% of the amount of the PSL.

In my hurry to finish the post I wasn’t as thorough as usual, my apologies.  After the fact, I’ve done the research I should’ve done earlier.

In September the Post-Dispatch explained four ongoing lawsuits:

• One lawsuit involves future ownership of the Rams’ former practice facility in Earth City, known for years as Rams Park.
• A second involves fans who bought tickets and team merchandise in the final years of the Rams’ time in St. Louis.
• A third is a class-action suit on behalf of thousands of PSL (personal seat license) holders from the team’s 21-season stay in St. Louis.
• The fourth, and biggest of the four, basically challenges the way the Rams, the NFL, and the 31 other NFL teams and owners went about the process of relocating the Rams from St. Louis to Los Angeles.

It’s the third lawsuit over PSLs that has been settled.

The original PSLs were good for 30 seasons, coinciding with the 30-year length of the stadium lease at what was once called the Edward Jones Dome. As such, they would be good through the 2024 season, but then the Rams moved to LA after 21 seasons in St. Louis.

The suit sought a refund for the unused nine years worth of the seat license fee plus damages, and in some cases the chance to buy Rams season tickets in Los Angeles. Citing a Forbes article, the suit said the average price of the original 46,000 licenses was $2,085 per ticket for a total of about $96 million.

The case itself involves more than 20,000 ticket accounts. (Post-Dispatch)

The other mistake I made was not making the poll question controversial, so the responses were far fewer than usual. The results can be viewed on the original post.

Again, my apologies for these mistakes.

— Steve Patterson

b

b

b

b