Rams settle lawsuit with season ticket-holders

A federal judge has given final approval to a $24 million settlement between the St. Louis Rams and season ticket-holders who sued after the team moved to Los Angeles.

On June 24, U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr. approved a settlement that will allow the owners of personal seat licenses, or PSLs, to receive cash payments for 30 percent of the face value of the original price of their PSLs.

The plaintiffs in the case brought suits in 2016, after the Rams left St. Louis. They alleged the Rams organization breached their PSL contracts by moving the team. The team has maintained that the seat owners’ rights and obligations under their PSL contracts expired with the team’s move.

In March 2018, Limbaugh certified two classes in the case, the FANS class and the Rams class. At class certification, Limbaugh also consolidated three cases into one.

The FANS class includes persons or entities who owned a PSL purchased from Fans Inc. at the conclusion of the 2015 season. Ronald McAllister served as class representative for the FANS class.

The Rams class includes persons or entities who purchased PSLs directly from the Rams, had PSLs transferred to them or upgraded their PSL tier. Richard Arnold, R. McNeely Cochran and Brad Pearlman are class representatives of the Rams class.

As part of the settlement, class members must make a valid claim to receive a payment. Each class may seek up to $12 million in claims apiece.

Limbaugh separately approved $3.6 million apiece in attorneys’ fees for lawyers representing the FANS class and the Rams class, totaling $7.2 million. He also approved $200,000 in costs.

As part of the order, Limbaugh approved incentive awards to the class representatives, including $20,000 for McAllister; $20,000 for Arnold; $7,000 for Cochran and $3,000 to Pearlman.

The additional fees and costs will be paid by the Rams separate of the $24 million available to class members.

St. Louis attorney Fernando Bermudez represented the Rams class members. He said he and his clients were pleased with the result.

“We’re very gratified that the court understood that this settlement addressed the damage that was caused by the Rams moving to Los Angeles and we’re also gratified that the people are actually going to be paid cash in the very near future,” he said.

Bermudez said the result runs counter to public sentiment after the Rams’ move that PSL holders were out of luck.

“Based on a careful reading of the PSLs, they’re not out of luck and this is the fruit of the lawsuit,” he said.

Ryan L. Bruning of The Bruning Law Firm represented the FANS class. He said the settlement was a great result for the class.

“It’s exactly what we asked for and what we wanted when we initially filed the lawsuit, to reimburse all the PSL holders for the nine years left on their contracts,” he said.

Bruning noted that the PSLs were 30-year contracts, and when the Rams left, they’d gotten only 21 years of use, amounting to 70 percent of the contract.

Roger K. Heidenreich of Dentons in St. Louis represented the Rams. He could not be reached for comment.