Michelle Sterioff, the lead plaintiff in a federal class action lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster, has filed to dismiss her complaint voluntarily, Billboard reports and court documents confirm. Sterioff filed her lawsuit a year ago in light of the the Eras Tour ticketing debacle, alleging that Ticketmaster violated antitrust laws and participated in anticompetitive and misleading conduct.
Sterioff’s notice for voluntary dismissal was filed yesterday (December 12) in a California federal court. A previous filing in the case indicated that Sterioff and the defendants were engaged in settlement discussions. Pitchfork has reached out to the plaintiff and defendants’ respective attorneys for comment and more information.
In her initial complaint, Sterioff and her lawyers claimed, “Ticketmaster intentionally and purposefully misled millions of fans into believing it would prevent bots and scalpers from participating in the presales.” They continued, “However, millions of fans were unable to purchase tickets during the TaylorSwiftTix Presale and the Capital One Presale, due in large part to unprecedented website traffic caused by Ticketmaster allowing 14 million unverified Ticketmaster users and a ‘staggering’ number of bots to participate in the presales.”
Another Taylor Swift fan, Julie Barfuss, has an active federal class action lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster. Read Pitchfork’s interview with Barfuss: