Settlement talks have started among lawyers for the Bengals, Hamilton County and football fans who feel cheated in their seat assignments at Paul Brown Stadium.

        The discussions began Tuesday and will continue this week and next.

        Six fans sued the team and the county in September. The lawsuit, which may turn into a class action involving more than 400 fans, could end up costing taxpayers between $1.5 million and $3 million to settle, said an attorney representing the fans. A hearing on the class-action issue is scheduled for May 8.

        Attorneys on both sides of the table expressed confidence that a settlement can be reached quickly on at least half of the suit — the complaint that some season ticket holders paid for seat licenses in specific sections of the stadium only to be seated in lower-priced zones. Seat licenses were required in order to buy season tickets.

        A stickier issue is whether some longtime season ticket holders were given worse seats than those given to team officials, advertisers or fans buying general admission tickets.

        Fans buying season tickets were promised they would be seated in the new stadium based on seniority — the longer they've been a season ticket holder, the better the seat.

        Janet Abaray, the fans' attorney, said she thinks that didn't happen in many cases.

        “In the zone issue, it's going to be fairly easy to identify that group of people and assess damages for them,” Ms. Abaray said. “The seniority issue is much more difficult because it involves people getting some sort of preference. What are the remedies for that?”

        Carl Stich, a lawyer for the county, said he wants to make sure fans get “the benefit of the bargain.”

        But he called the seat preference issue a “Rubik's cube with no solution.”

        “I do think the seniority issue is very complicated,” Mr. Stich said. “We can take the seniority list and put them in rank order. But we can't necessarily do the same thing with good seats, because people have different views of what's good.”

WEDNESDAY STORY

Shifted seats kept private

        The Bengals have said they want the suit settled, and that the county should refund the difference to any fans who were seated in cheaper zones. The Bengals say they will refund fans if they were overcharged for tickets.

        Bengals officials on Wednesday denied that they knew changes to the stadium seating bowl in February 1997 would affect the location of seating zones.

        Team lawyer W. Stuart Dornette said the team was unaware of a change in the stadium design that reduced the number of seating zones from 49 to 40 — the major reason many fans were displaced — until fans started complaining about their seats in August 2000.

        “That makes us mad that we weren't aware of it and were unable to address it,” Mr. Dornette said.

        The seat licenses were sold by the county.

Flutie latest QB in mix Bengals turn focus to DE Settlement talks begin in seat dispute

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