Cedar Fair Season Pass Litigation Replaces Class Representatives After Certification Exclusions Leave Plaintiffs Without Standing

Plaintiffs purchased season passes for the 2020 operating season with a promise of unlimited visits, but the COVID-19 outbreak caused Cedar Fair to shorten or cancel seasons at various parks without providing refunds. The dispute centers on whether the season passes were revocable licenses that guaranteed only admittance subject to operational adjustments, or contracts entitling passholders to refunds for the difference between the expected and actual season value.

Following an Ohio Supreme Court decision in Valentine v. Cedar Fair, L.P., the court dismissed breach of contract and unjust enrichment claims for most plaintiffs, leaving only Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act claims and equitable claims for passholders whose parks never opened. The court certified two classes but defined them in a way that excluded any passholder who received a refund or used their 2020 pass during the 2021 season.

These definitional exclusions left both certified classes without any named plaintiffs who retained standing to represent them. The Sixth Circuit denied Cedar Fair’s request for an interlocutory appeal, noting that substituting new representatives is permissible when named plaintiffs lose standing after certification.

The court granted the motion to amend, holding that existing named plaintiffs retained standing for the OCSPA class because they remained members of that class despite not being certified as representatives. For the equitable claims class, the court construed the motion as one for intervention by previously unnamed class members to cure the standing defect.

The court denied a request to expand the equitable claims class definition to include in-person purchasers, finding no qualifying change in law or fact to justify reconsidering the initial certification order. The court certified Jessica Hunt, Tracy Miller, Chante Hammond, Richard Davis, Eric Contreras, and Isaac Conard as the new class representatives for the OCSPA Class. Hunt, Miller, Hammond, and Davis were also certified as representatives for the Equitable Claims Class.