Stupid 17200 Claim of the Day
Timothy Sandefur on Jan 25th 2006
(That’s California’s “Unfair Competition Law,” Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code 17200).
There haven’t been many of these since Prop 64 passed. But in Pizarro v. Lamb’s Players Theatre, 2006 WL 163612 (Cal.App. 4 Dist. Jan. 24, 2006), the court found that “offering discount admission prices to ‘baby-boomers’ to attend a musical about that generation does not involve an arbitrary class-based generalization protected by the [Unruh Civil Rights] Act.” A San Diego theater put on a musical show called Boomers, featuring music from the Baby Boomer generation, and offered discounts on tickets sold to any person born between 1946 and 1964. The plaintiffs were adults not born within those years, who didn’t get the discount, and sued. The court was obliged to spend two pages maintaining a serious attitude as if the plaintiffs’ claims deserved any respect whatsoever, concluding that
A reason given by defendant for providing the discount admission to “baby-boomers” was to encourage attendance at a family-based entertainment event. As the Starkman court recognized in evaluating theater discounts given to seniors and children, “without such incentives these populations may be totally excluded from enjoying some of the pleasures of our society.” “Paying for the necessities of life frequently strains the pocketbooks of many Americans.” Therefore, making “American pastimes affordable is beneficial to us all.” Because a theater ticket discount allows greater access to the theater, public policy favors the disparate treatment, whether the discount is made available to children, seniors or boomers.
Id. at *3. Moreover, the court was assured that “Providing discounted theater admissions to ‘baby-boomers’ to attend a musical about that generation does not perpetuate any irrational stereotypes.” Id. Well, perhaps not, but reading decisions like this perpetuate irrational stereotypes about non-Boomers and their bloodsucking lawyers.
Filed in The Bench