Seas sued over pass fee collection

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Geez, this company can’t cut itself a break.
 
Joe said:
Geez, this company can’t cut itself a break.
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It's class-action but filed in California against SWSD; so other seas passholders wouldn't likely be members of the class. Though this could set precedent for a larger suit.
 
Jahrules said:
It's class-action but filed in California against SWSD; so other seas passholders wouldn't likely be members of the class. Though this could set precedent for a larger suit.
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Go back and read the article again. The class-action lawsuit is Nationwide. There is a 2nd part of the suit tied to California residents only.

Now, how many Seaworld patrons, with memberships, want to jump on that bandwagon remains to be seen. Depending on the strength/merits of the lawsuit and the number of member litigants (Lets say a minimum of 25-35% as a base), then I would think Seaworld would start hemoraging money to fight this in court and the potential to have to refund that all that money back if they lose.
 
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I guess SEAS taking an interest free loan from its customers without consent didn’t go over well with everyone.
 
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mwhinva said:
Go back and read the article again. The class-action lawsuit is Nationwide. There is a 2nd part of the suit tied to California residents only.
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This.

I just read the lawsuit and it's literally the second thing mentioned under "Jurisdiction and Venue."


JURISDICTION AND VENUE

2. This Court has subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1332(d)(2)(A) because this case is a class action where the aggregate claims of all members of the proposed class are in excess of $5,000,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and most members of the proposed nationwide class are citizens of states different from the states of Defendant.
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And the next page mentions this...


9. Plaintiff seeks relief in this action individually, and on behalf of all of Defendant’s customers nationwide that have paid or were charged fees while Defendant’s amusement parks and water parks were closed for Defendant’s violations of the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act (“CLRA”), Civil Code §§1750, et seq., Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”), Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 17200, et seq., False Advertising Law (“FAL”), Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 17500, et seq., for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, and money had and received.
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My gut feeling is that SEAS will "lose" but it isn't going to be a really big loss for them overall.

~First off, I'm curious if other monthly pay services will be part of class action lawsuits. Not every company stopped monthly autograft payments. So SEAS wasn't the only one to continue drawing fees.
~Second off, there are people who got payments to stop while the pandemic is going on. Yes you had to call in and talk to them to get the payments to stop. At some point (personal belief here) you have to just be an adult and pick up the phone. Can't expect everyone else to do everything for you.
~Third off, SEAS (at least BGW) has increased future benefits and extended the pass/membership end date to include month they won't be paying for. So you are paying for a service, it's just not one you will use right away. Not uncommon at all.

Lastly, it sucks that this was filed in California for SEAS because California has the laws set up the skew heavily in the favor of the consumer and tends to screw over the business. SEAS might be able to bring up a counter suit in Florida where their home operations are that could cause the California suit to have to be dropped. Much harder than done than said though.
 
SEAS really screwed this up by not immediately deferring payments for monthly payers or at least making it easy to do so optionally. Since it's not certain how long parks would/will be closed, defaulting the deferral onto the back end may not be desired by a lot of customers. The optional deferral should have been available online or via email to show good faith and not force everyone to use an overburdened call center.

Legally I could see this going either way. A lot will matter on the perception of how well the contract changes were communicated to customers, the dates it was done, and the resolutions given to customers to leave the membership plans.
 
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