CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT
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Class Action Pact Pitches Relief To Disappointed Mets Fans
Kampf v.
Comcast Corp.: Is a month of free Showtime, Cinemax,
the Movie Channel, and maybe even the Playboy Channel equal to 25
Mets baseball games? It is under a Feb. 24 settlement that would end
one of the state’s most unusual class action suits.
Lawyers representing Comcast customers who paid a $13.95 monthly premium to receive Sports Channel sued Comcast in Essex County Superior Court in 1997 alleging that they didn’t get what they paid for: all the Mets games broadcast that year by Sports Channel.
According to the suit, filed by David Mazie, a partner in a Livingston law firm, Comcast blacked out 25 extra games that were added to the SportsChannel lineup in January 1997. Those games were available only on pay-per-view for $1.99.
The lead plaintiff is a lawyer and admitted Met fan, Jeffrey Kampf, of Jay & Kampf in Caldwell.
Mazie says that under the settlement, 50,000 Comcast customers will be offered a month of premium services, which the settlement defines as "Showtime, Cinemax, The Movie Channel, or in some systems, the Disney Channel or the Playboy Channel." The offering will be made in monthly bills sent to subscribers.
Subscribers who already receive premium services will get a one-month credit equivalent to the lowest-priced premium service.
Comcast also agreed it wouldn’t oppose an application by the plaintiffs’ counsel for a $112,500 fee, which Comcast would pay.
Beyond that, the settlement doesn’t say how much it will cost the company. Nor does it say how much the company may make in the future from class action members who -- having tried premium cable free for a month -- discover they can’t live without it, and buy it.
One of Comcast’s lawyers, Mary Cather Roper, as associate in Philadelphia’s Drinker, Biddle & Reath, declines to comment because the settlement is awaiting approval before Judge Jack Kirsten. -- By Henry Gottlieb |
