|
 Jones spent more than two hours on the witness stand testifying in a
lawsuit filed by seven fans who sued the NFL because they either did
not have seats, or their seats had obstructed views.
On cross-examination, Jones admitted the stadium did not meet its
deadline for installing the temporary seats.
"I regret that," he said.
Lawyers said these are the first multiple lawsuits brought by fans
who claim the NFL breached its ticket contract with them by offering
inadequate seats or forcing them to stand throughout the game.
Jones was originally named in the suit but was later dropped,
leaving the National Football League as the sole defendant.
NFL officials have taken responsibility for the seating troubles but
fans rejected settlement offers of reimbursements and tickets to
subsequent Super Bowls as insufficient.
Fans are trying to convince the jury that the NFL placed its greed
ahead of doing the job correctly, according to court documents.
About 13,000 temporary seats were supposed to be set up but 1,250 of
those were determined to be unusable because of missing guard rails
or other safety problems, forcing 850 ticket-holders to be
relocated, with nearly 400 in standing room.
[to top of second column] |
Email correspondence and testimony from top NFL executives earlier
in the two-week trial, described growing unease about the temporary
seating and pressure from Jones to break attendance records at the
2011 game held on Feb. 6 in the Dallas suburb of Arlington.
Jones had said at a news conference before the game, which Green Bay
Packers won against the Pittsburgh Steelers by a score of 31-25,
that the Super Bowl attendance record would be broken, but it was
not.
(Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Eric Walsh)
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