A Florida man named Ronald "Blue" Denton has sued Netflix in Florida state court, claiming he is entitled to monetary damages as a result of the streaming glitches Netflix suffered during Friday night's boxing broadcast, which was highlighted by Katie Taylor-Amanda Serrano II and the disappointing Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight. Denton and his attorneys, The Consumer Protection Firm, PLLC, have styled the suit as a proposed class action, which means they seek to recover on behalf of every consumer in the United States, which is likely in the tens of millions. Boxingtalk is very dubious that the lawsuit can succeed on a large scale because there will not be an easy way to prove which viewers experienced streaming difficulties and who did not.
Here are the allegations of the lawsuit: Sixty million households were part of a record-breaking night for Netflix as they attempted to tune in to see 58 year-old “Iron” Mike Tyson fight 27 year-old Jake Paul on Friday, November 15th. The fight was distributed by Netflix to over 6,000 bars and restaurants across the United States. This was a record for commercial distribution of a combat sports.
Family and friends across America were eagerly waiting for the highly anticipated fight between Tyson and Paul, in addition to three undercard fights, all to begin at 8:00 p.m. Instead, the boxing fans along with the average Americans wanting to see a legend in what would most likely be his last fight, were faced with legendary problems, including: no access, streaming glitches, and buffering issues. These caused Plaintiffs to “bite their gloves” in frustration as they did not get what they bargained for. They missed large portions of the fight(s); if not the fight all together. Tens of thousands of Netflix users reported issues accessing the streaming service to the long-awaited showdown between the two famous fighters. By 9:46 p.m., roughly 97,000 reports had been received. NBC Chicago contacted Netflix for a response to the troubles and was told, in part, “Nothing to comment on at this time..."
Netflix plan subscriptions range from $6.99 to $22.99 a month (pre-tax). Subscribers of Netflix were angered and disappointed after some reported Netflix crashed repeatedly throughout the fight. “The fight was ‘unwatchable,’ for most viewers.”
Instead of providing the programming its viewers pay for every month Netflix was completely unprepared and unable to “fix” the issues.
Plaintiffs, individually and on behalf of the [proposed] class of similarly situated persons, bring this class action lawsuit and allege the following against Defendant Netflix, Inc, based upon personal knowledge with respect to Plaintiff and on information and believe derived from, among other things, investigation of counsel and review of public documents as to all other matters.
Plaintiffs bring this class action for Netflix’s failure to fulfill contractual obligations, and engaging in deceptive trade practices, as they continued billing for services not delivered, and charging and collecting fees for a product that was not delivered. Plaintiffs seek, among other things, orders requiring Netflix to supply services or reimburse [proposed] class members for being unable to deliver on a highly advertised program which was included in Plaintiffs’ subscription to Netflix.
On Friday, November 15th, Netflix customers experienced massive streaming issues and should have known better because it’s happened before. They were woefully ill-prepared.
As a result of Netflix's failure to follow contractually agreed upon standards, Plaintiff and [the proposed] class members received only a diminished value of the services Netflix was to provide, or no value at all. Accordingly, Plaintiff, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, alleges claims for breach of contract, and violation of Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and Florida’s Consumer Collection Practices Act.
