Third-party ticket exchange TicketNetwork this week won a class action lawsuit over the disclosure of ticket face values, after the plaintiff in the case withdrew the motion.

Bronx, NY, resident Andrea Weinstein filed suit against TicketNetwork in 2010 after she bought two tickets from an affiliated Web site to see the musical “A Little Night Music” on Broadway. She paid $102 each for the tickets; with fees, the purchase came to a total of $249.60.

Weinstein subsequently learned that face value for the tickets was $79 each, which she claimed she was not told before making the purchase, so she sued arguing that New York statutes require secondary and primary ticket companies to disclose face values.

The case resembled one against competing ticket marketplace StubHub and the New York Yankees, under which Weinstein made similar claims about not being informed of a ticket’s face value.

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Weinstein lost that case when a judge ruled in favor of StubHub and the Yankees, stressing that they cannot be held liable for disclosing face values for every transaction. In fact, secondary ticket marketplaces and ticket broker Web sites often go to great lengths to disclose that tickets purchased from them may be sold at a premium.

“There is simply no way the Yankees can police each and every third party ticket sale to ensure that the final purchaser receives the ticket in the same form, and with the same face value information, as when it was originally issued by the Yankees,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge John F. Keenan.

Weinstein’s lawyer, New York attorney Randall Newman, told TicketNews that Keenan’s decision sealed the fate of the TicketNetwork lawsuit, and he and his client decided to ask for a dismissal of their case.

“The TicketNetwork case was too problematic in New York after the StubHub decision,” Newman said, adding that he has filed a similar case against StubHub in California with a different client, but that he has no immediate plans to pursue further action against TicketNetwork.

“This is a classic example of why government needs to contain frivolous lawsuits,” said Don Vaccaro, founder and CEO of TicketNetwork. “Lawsuits like these raise the cost of tickets to every consumer.”

TicketNetwork is the parent company of TicketNews.

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