Fan Sues Yankees For $5 million Over Inauthentic Stadium Seat

A Yankees fan from New Jersey is filing a $5 million class action suit over some seats from the old Yankee stadium he bought as a souvenir. John Lefkus spent the best 23 seasons of his life rooting for the Yankees from section M11, Row A, seats one and two, and after the Team moved to a new stadium, Lefkus decided to buy his old seats for $2,000. But what he actually purchased would shock him.

When the seats arrived at his New Jersey home last summer, the 52-year-old fan was dismayed to find that the original blue paint had been replaced with a different shade of blue. And it gets worse! The armrests were different. A betrayed Lefkus tells the Post, "I feel like the steroid stars. My seats come with an asterisk. My boys grew up in these seats from boys to teenagers to men. We had them for 23 years."

Naturally, he's suing, and the federal class action lawsuit filed against the Yankees and Steiner Sports Memorabilia seeks $5 million. But Steiner insists it made clear that the original paint would have to be stripped because of lead, and all the armrests had to be removed during that process. Owner Brandon Steiner says, "It was impossible to tag all the armrests." Furthermore, Steiner claims that after he offered Lefkus a refund, Lefkus "tried to extort me, demanding I upgrade his season tickets and get him a whole bunch of autographs." Lefkus's lawyer says Steiner is just "changing the subject."

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By John Del Signore in News on October 26, 2009 4:45 PM

Comments [rss]

fixer

Stuff white people like #677: old Yankee stadium seats

laughlynne

Wait, why are we all feeling bad for this guy? Whatever sympathy to be had for the loss of his armrest pretty much goes down the drain when he sues for a ridiculous amount like $5 million dollars.

Guest

Yet Yankees fan fail to get pissed about the $9 million given each player for each year they play. ($208 million payroll/divided by 23 players=$9 million per player).

marcasm

I am surprised he hasn't developed headaches yet, it's worth another $5 million at least.

ed_Extinct

Lead paint was banned in the United States for commercial and residential use in 1978.

butterbutter

So are the Yankee's suggesting or admitting that they let fans and children play and sit, on potentially poisonous lead based painted seats?

Saying they had to strip the paint before selling it, makes me wonder how it was ok to let fans sit in those seats for years.

Snoopy

I'm a bit confused here. Didn't Yankee stadium go under a major renovation back in the late 70's? I don't think lead based paints were available after the fifties or sixties. I can see white paint but not blue. Does anyone here know when lead base paint died?

But five mil seems reasonable given the hardships the asshole John Lefkus and his family have gone through over their years being Yankee fans.

youngpro

Does anyone feel bad for this guy? Steinbrenner is no dummy, and I'm sure he and Steiner admittedly had a lot of fine print in the purchase agreement, receipt, etc., which Lefkus didn't read.

Sounds like a real 'catch 22,' where the seller gets f*cked either way (for selling a lead paint-based chair or for selling seats that were painted over and now deemed by buyer to be 'unauthentic').

Get a life, Lefkus. You're probably a habitual lawsuit-er anyway.

NannyState

Maybe he can trade seats with all the other 52 year old mouth-breathing retards on his block.

jaycjay

"Naturally, he's suing"

Naturally!

schadenfreudian mensch

Told you, slap a Yankee logo on shit and idots will buy it hand over fist.

pudeljung

while this is a damn shame, sometimes I wonder why people actually still believe that baseball is a wholesome, fun sport; it's for so long obviously been a rip-off corporate mafia-tainment.