NYC Marathon Meeting With Pros At 11 am Today

is english your first language because this is one horrifically written post?

That may be but we can not forget that in the days before this event was canceled, there was supposedly many entrants on Facebook and Twitter demanding that the race be canceled.

Therefore NYRR was listening to their customers and responded in the way the customers wanted. I would hope none of the runners who wanted to shut down the race will, in the coming months, demand to be compensated in any way or have their entry fee returned.

Have the people who are saying the no refund policy will not hold up actually read it? It was not vague and it was not indecipherable legalese. Although I don't have it in front of me, it was essentially one sentence; "entry fee will not be refunded under any circumstances, including race cancellation".

Why would I be due a refund after it was so clear this was nonrefundable? Anyone who signed up must've considered that they could've been injured and unable to run and would not have been refunded under that case. If you couldn't afford to lose that money you shouldn't have signed up in the first place.

Bingo. That's how I read it. No refunds under any circumstances. I take that to mean even if NYRR decide they don't feel like having a race. We don't like it but we, the consumers, are powerless here. We pay to be part of the excitement on race day. Hopefully in 2013 there will be double the excitement after the 2 year layoff.

Is English your first language? Because you don't seem to know where the question mark belongs.

ukathleticscoach wrote:

Maybe but are they going to pay again to run next year?

...

Is the race organiser(s) going to return their over inflated fee, why should just the runners pay

The NYC marathon has a lottery with like 100,000 people just trying to get in the thing every year. They could double their entry fees if they wanted and still fill up the 47,000 spots, no problem. Do you really think lack of paying customers is going to be a problem for them next year?

NYRR gave 2.6 million to welfare in the wake of the disaster as image "damage control". Dollar for dollar, that is the money that NYRR is now saying it does not have to refund to cheated customers. They took your entrance fees and handed them out to largely uninsured people who chose to live in the path of hurricanes.

For all the people that decry government... this is your deified private sector at work.

So how do we get a class action lawsuit against NYRR and NYC for misleading all of us runners?

You pull that out-of-where? wrote:

otto wrote:

Money back is no option given that 90% of event expenses are spent in advance. Where there is no money, there won't be money back.

Is not a large portion of the mass entry fees to cover police and emergency crew support, and then the city for road closure? Well neither of those should have to be paid because the city opted out. So what 90% of event fees being pre-spent are you talking about, hmmmm?

Marketing

Lease

Rent

Salaries

Travel cost

Staging

Food

Media

Supplies

etc.

Organize a 5k and you'll get a distant idea.

Me tooo wrote:

"entry fee will not be refunded under any circumstances, including race cancellation".

Yeah. Although I was not registered for NYC I am sure it was like the standard disclaimer on every other race entry form I have signed. I can't remember ever being in a race that was flat canceled, but I have been in quite a few that have turned into a clusterfudge for one reason or another. You don't get your money back in those cases either. It's the same deal, but just the NYC stakes are higher at $260 compared to $20 or whatever for a local 10K.

Why are people complaining? What race agrees to refund your entry fee if the race is cancelled or made into a "fun run?" This is the risk you take for signing up for a race. Don't like it? Don't sign up for races. Where the money went or what is left of it isn't relevant. You don't get a refund, end of story, and thats what you agreed to when you signed up for the race and paid the entry fee.

True. It could have been like Green Bay where the runners crossed the start and 45 minutes later canceled it. At least in NYC the runners didn't have to get the 42nd St. at 4:15 a.m. for the bus ride, go wait 4 hours at Fort Wadsworth, start the race over the Verrazano Bridge and get to Brooklyn and then cancel the race. People would have been steamed.

rojo wrote:

I thought about that myself but the NYRR has lawyers and i'm sure they are covered on this.

The race was cancelled because of the Hurricane. After the Hurricane, the Mayor ultimately decided he couldn't stand up to public opinion/unions.

So he told them they couldn't have it.

I think the NYRR would win if this was pressed in court as clearly it was force majeure.

Not clear at all.

Just because there is a "no refunds" clause in the signup form doesn't mean that it would always be enforceable. Indeed, an event cancellation, whatever the reason, would be just the sort of situation in which a court might be inclined to not enforce it.

The first question I'd ask of NYRRC would be "where is your event cancellation insurance policy?". The lack of one might well open up the officers and directors of the NYRRC to individual liability for negligence.

otto wrote:

rojo wrote:

I think the NYRR would win if this was pressed in court as clearly it was force majeure.

But the cancellation was only indirectly caused by Force Majeur. Will be an interesting test for their waiver.

If the public anger about running the marathon was so great, that threats were being made and the police had told the city and NYRR that they could not ensure the safety of the runners, then that would also be a case of force majeure.

If the NYRR were informed of this risk and the race went ahead and runners were attacked, then NYRR would be at risk of legal action for ignoring police warnings.

Let me explain the facts of life to you - Mayor Bloomberg cancelled the 2012 NYC marathon. Mary Wittenberg & NYRRC had no choice but to agree to this.

NYC & NYRRC are in a symbiotic relationship when it comes to NYC marathon.

The allure of the marathon is because it runs through all 5 boroughs. The marathon cannot function without NYC AND NYRRC.

Mary was forced to donate that $2.6 million to charity for damage control/PR reasons....again, Mary had no choice.

How soon did Broadway plays/shows start up after Sandy?

Me tooo wrote:

Have the people who are saying the no refund policy will not hold up actually read it? It was not vague and it was not indecipherable legalese. Although I don't have it in front of me, it was essentially one sentence; "entry fee will not be refunded under any circumstances, including race cancellation".

Why would I be due a refund after it was so clear this was nonrefundable? Anyone who signed up must've considered that they could've been injured and unable to run and would not have been refunded under that case. If you couldn't afford to lose that money you shouldn't have signed up in the first place.

This has been explained numerous times already. Some clauses in contracts are unenforceable. This one likely is.

Generally speaking, for a contract to be binding, each party must provide something to the other party. I pay you, you provide labor for me. I give a car dealer money, and he gives me a car. I pay an entry fee, and you let me run a marathon.

Contracts generally cannot be unilateral. If one party gives something to another party and receives nothing in return, there is no contract. That is exactly what has happened here. People have given NYRR $260 and received nothing in return. So the contract should ultimately be void.

rojo wrote:

I think the NYRR would win if this was pressed in court as clearly it was force majeure.

In addition to previously named reasons why force majeure may not apply, there is this very important one: Force majeure is not a common law condition of contracts. It has to be explicitly stated in the contract (i.e. the terms the runners and NYRR agreed to) before it can be asserted as a defense in court. Despite asking several times on several different threads today nobody has yet provided any language of force majeure in the race entry.

About 8 years ago-the "Mile High City Marathon" was cancelled at the race expo. It was a shoestring operation-in its 3 or 4th year. They got a couple thousand entrants. The city refused to provide cops unless they were paid up front-previous years the city had accepted payment monday after the race. The race organizer was counting on walk up registrations to make the payment-and the Mayor, (now governor) John Hickenlooper decided he didn't like shoestring marathons early on Sunday morning-he made that decision on Thursday evening.

The race offered refunds. The organizer was a friend of a friend-and I heard he almost lost his house over it-so I let him keep my 75 bucks. And I'll never vote for Hickenlooper.

Now the race is a Rock and Roll event. And it sucks.

people got a race tee shirt and goody bag.