## Facts

- Andrea Weinstein sought New York Yankees home-game tickets for July 25, 2010 and, after finding none on the Yankees’ website, followed a link to StubHub’s separate website.
- StubHub operated a secondary ticket marketplace connecting buyers with anonymous third-party resellers.
- StubHub’s webpages disclosed that StubHub did not own tickets, that resellers set prices, and that prices could exceed face value.
- Weinstein purchased electronic tickets with a $20 face value but paid $33 per ticket plus fees; the electronic tickets she received did not show the $20 face value.
- Weinstein brought a putative class action against eBay (StubHub’s parent), StubHub, the New York Yankees Partnership, and John Doe defendants.
- She alleged violations of New York Arts and Cultural Affairs Law (ACAL) § 25.07 (face value not printed), ACAL §§ 25.13 and 25.23 (aiding and abetting unlawful/unlicensed resale and disclosure violations), and New York General Business Law (GBL) § 349 (deceptive practices based on consumer confusion about the source and pricing of tickets).

## Issues

1. Whether ACAL § 25.07 imposed direct liability on eBay, StubHub, or the Yankees for the omission of face value on the electronic tickets delivered to the buyer.
2. Whether eBay, StubHub, or the Yankees could be liable under ACAL §§ 25.13 and 25.23 for aiding and abetting statutory violations allegedly committed by third-party ticket resellers.
3. Whether plaintiff plausibly pleaded a materially misleading act or practice under GBL § 349, given StubHub’s disclosures and the asserted risk that consumers would believe tickets were sold by the Yankees at or near face value.

## Decision

- The court granted defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion and dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice.
- The court held plaintiff failed to state a claim for direct violations of ACAL § 25.07 against eBay, StubHub, or the Yankees.
- The court held plaintiff failed to state a claim for aiding-and-abetting liability under ACAL §§ 25.13 and 25.23.
- The court held plaintiff failed to plead deception under GBL § 349 because the site’s disclosures defeated any reasonable-consumer inference of misleading conduct.
- Dismissal was with prejudice because the defects were legal and could not be cured by additional factual allegations.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory duties concerning ticket face-value display under the ACAL are not imposed on defendants absent a clear statutory basis to treat them as regulated sellers/issuers responsible for the challenged omission.
- Aiding-and-abetting liability under the ACAL requires plausible allegations, grounded in the statutory scheme, that defendants engaged in conduct the provisions target or otherwise provided actionable assistance in statutory violations; conclusory allegations are insufficient.
- A GBL § 349 claim requires a materially misleading act or practice likely to mislead a reasonable consumer; clear, repeated disclosures that the platform is a secondary marketplace and that prices are set by resellers can defeat deception as a matter of law at the pleading stage.

## Conclusion

The court dismissed claims seeking to extend New York’s ticketing statutes and consumer-protection law to an online secondary ticket platform and related entities, holding that the pleaded statutory theories did not fit the defendants’ roles and that prominent marketplace disclosures foreclosed a plausible claim of consumer deception.


Weinstein v. eBay, Inc., 819 F. Supp. 2d 219 (S.D.N.Y. 2011)