## Facts

- The Brooklyn National League Baseball Club operated Ebbets Field and sold tickets to home games.
- Plaintiffs were licensed ticket brokers who bought game tickets and resold them, often above face value, from agencies located across the street from the ballpark.
- The Club published notices that any person presenting a ticket bought from someone charging more than face value would be denied admission.
- Beginning June 15, 1942, the Club implemented the policy by refusing to honor tickets purchased from brokers or speculators, while offering a refund of the ticket’s face value if presented for refund before game time.
- Plaintiffs alleged the policy caused them to refund customers in some instances and reduced their ticket-resale business.
- The Club asserted the policy was adopted to curb premium-price speculation, avoid public resentment when games sold out at the box office, and protect the Club’s goodwill and future patronage.

## Issues

1. Whether a ticket broker’s license under New York law confers a legally enforceable right to resell tickets for a particular venue and require the venue to honor those resold tickets.
2. Whether the Club’s refusal to admit holders of tickets resold above face value (while refunding face value) was unlawful so as to warrant a temporary injunction.

## Decision

- The court denied plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary injunction.
- The court held that plaintiffs’ licenses regulated their business activity but did not grant a vested right or franchise to sell tickets for the Club’s games or to compel the Club to honor resold tickets.
- The court treated the Club’s policy as a reasonable business measure to reduce ticket speculation and protect goodwill, particularly given the availability of face-value refunds.
- Because plaintiffs failed to show a clear legal right to the relief sought, equitable intervention was not warranted.

## Legal Principles

- A statutory license to resell tickets authorizes engagement in the ticket-resale business but does not create a vested right to sell tickets for any specific place of amusement or to require the proprietor to accept patrons holding resold tickets.
- A proprietor of a place of public amusement may set reasonable admission conditions to protect legitimate business interests, including limiting admission on tickets obtained through premium-price resale, where the ticket price is refunded.
- Loss of ticket-resale business, without an independent enforceable right against the proprietor, is insufficient to justify a temporary injunction.

## Conclusion

The court refused to enjoin the ballclub’s anti-scalping admissions policy, concluding that licensed ticket brokers had no legally protected entitlement to compel the club to honor tickets they resold above face value, especially where purchasers could obtain refunds of face value.


Levine v. Brooklyn Nat’l League Baseball Club, Inc., 36 N.Y.S.2d 474 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Kings Cnty. 1942)