Jones To Testify In Super Bowl Seating Case
Follow CBSDFW.COM: Facebook | Twitter
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM/AP) - Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is set to testify Tuesday in the trial of a lawsuit brought by a handful of football fans who sued the NFL over problems with temporary seats at the 2011 Super Bowl in the $1.2 billion AT&T Stadium.
About 1,250 temporary seats were deemed unsafe just a few hours before the game began. That forced about 850 ticket holders to move to new seats, and sent 400 other fans to standing-room locations.
Seven fans sued, saying that they either did not have seats or had seats with obstructed views. The lawsuit alleges that the NFL breached its contract with ticket holders, and that settlement offers failed to fully compensate them. The NFL has said that it fully compensated displaced fans.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had said in a taped deposition that the league was responsible for the issue, and NFL executive vice president Eric Grubman spent more than an hour on Tuesday answering questions about the case.
Grubman testified that the NFL was responsible for the integrity of the Super Bowl, but the installation contractor did not care to attend planning meetings. The role of the Cowboys in the event's planning is part of the trial, which is one of the reasons that Jones is testifying.
Attorneys for the fans said that Jones and Goodell were "obsessed" with breaking Super Bowl attendance records, and ultimately sold seats that they could not provide.
(©2015 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
