MSG Bans Attorneys Via Facial Recognition Software

-- By MichaelPari - 16 Feb 2023

Introduction

In June of 2021, MSG Entertainment instituted a policy prohibiting every attorney working at a firm litigating against any of MSG Entertainment’s subsidiaries from entering their venues. The “attorney exclusion list” bars attorneys from any MSG Entertainment facilities, including its namesake Madison Square Garden, and Radio City Music Hall. The enactment of such a wide-ranged policy is being carried out via facial recognition technology. This ban also applies to MSG theaters outside of New York, though the use of such software varies based on local regulations.

Who is affected

Attorneys from approximately 90 firms that are on the opposing side of litigation against MSG have been prohibited from entering their arenas. Lawyers who are not a part of the actual lawsuit versus MSG Entertainment, or even admitted to the bar in the state of New York, are still placed on the exclusion list. Photographs of the attorneys have been entered into MSG’s facial recognition software after being taken from the law firms’ websites themselves. Once inputted, scanning software combs the crowd for any attorney entered into its database, and guards are deployed to escort them out. While MSG Entertainment has not said which facial recognition software company it uses, several on the market can accomplish such a feat.

Why is this happening

Madison Square Garden offered lawsuit-related reasons for the blanket ban across almost 100 law firms, though they seem far less likely than an attempt to deter lawsuits. First, MSG Entertainment issued a statement saying that this ban was enacted to stop lawyers from collecting evidence “outside proper litigation discovery channels.” Given the “inherently adversarial environment” litigation brings about, MSG Entertainment feels it needs to protect itself from those who seek to harm it. MSG also claimed that barring lawyers from its facilities prevents any individual lawyer representing the plaintiff from discussing their lawsuit with the respective MSG Entertainment employee. One lawyer who fell victim to the ban quipped back, comparing the odds of this happening to “being struck by lightning or the Knicks winning the NBA championship this year.” Such a conversation, or a similarly-unethical surveillance effort seems much less likely than someone merely going to a concert hall to see a concert.

Case studies

Larry Hutcher

Hutcher has owned season tickets to the Knicks for almost fifty years, and sat just five rows behind the basket. However, when Davidoff Hutcher & Citron LLP, a firm comprised of sixty attorneys, took a case representing twenty-four disgruntled ticket resellers, the multi-billion-dollar enterprise they targeted exacted its vengeance. Just over a week after filing the lawsuit, Hal Weidenfeld, MSG Entertainment’s senior vice president for legal and business affairs, sent the firm a letter that said all of their attorneys were banned from entering the venue until the litigation was over.

Kelly Conlon

Conlon took her daughter to New York City as part of a Girl Scout trip to see the Christmas Spectacular Show at Radio City Music Hall. While she passed through the metal detector, a voice came through the intercom: “woman with long dark hair and a gray scarf.” After being told she had been identified via facial recognition, Conlon explained that she was not a threat to the concert or any of its attendees. Conlon claimed that security staff “knew my name before I told them. They knew the firm I was associated with before I told them. And they told me I was not allowed to be there.” Even after explaining that she did not practice in New York, and was not involved in any cases against MSG, she was still forced out of the venue. While her daughter, the rest of her Girl Scout troop, and all the other parents who made the trek to the concert got to enjoy the show, Conlan was barred because of a petty grievance involving a case she was nowhere near.

Lack of good-faith notification

Attorneys with no pending or ongoing litigation have no reason to suspect anything may be amiss when purchasing a ticket. Also, depending on the size and scale of one’s practice, keeping up with every case being taken is not feasible. Notifications confirming the existence of the list are not easily visible, to the extent they are visible at all, when purchasing a ticket. Attorneys are removed from the venue at all stages of the process, with one recalling being taken out after reaching his seat and making it through a metal detector and area with trained dogs. This person was clearly not a safety concern, as, were they attempting to do harm, one of these measures would have easily detected their devices for executing such a plan. Additionally, after a ticket has been scanned, it cannot be sold to someone else, rendering the good-faith purchaser with no money and no entertainment.

NYC authority figures’ stances and Dolan’s response

The New York Attorney General launched a civil suit in response to the bans. § 40-B of NYC’s code prohibits “wrongful refusal of admission to and ejection from places of public entertainment and amusement,” and is being used to combat Dolan’s petty grievance. Additionally, allowing such a policy to stay in place risks MSG being able to shield itself from many future lawsuits, as attorneys will not want to be excluded. The NY State Senate is looking to pass a bill allowing anyone with a valid ticket to enter a public place, as another method of combatting the ban within the legal sphere. This bill is intended to stop the use of surveillance for non-security purposes. The State Liquor Association threatened MSG’s liquor license, as an attempt to hurt the company’s bottom line. Dolan responded telling politicians to solve actual problems, as opposed to advocating on behalf of “money grabbers whose business is motivated by self-promotion and who capitalize on the misfortune of others.” He also threatened to display a picture, email, and phone number of SLA CEO Sharif Kabir in the arena, and urge fans to harass him.

This draft provides a sufficient summary of the facts surrounding a dispute more likely to be visible than to be enlightening, or so I had supposed when I read the coverage. It accomplishes very well one of the most important functions of a first draft: to clear away the brush and show the question around which the next draft can grow. Here we can say the questions are: What matters in this story and why? Is this about the scope of the landlord's power to exclude commercial invitees? About the basis of public accommodations civil rights protections since 1865? About spite cases? It's the next stage, where interpretive powers are applied to the material, that real improvement occurs. Fortunately, it is not difficult to make the space needed. The current 1,000 words can be reduced to a minimal description including hypertext links to the relevant documents and coverage. A well-linked paragraph of 150 words can do the entire job, I should think, leaving 850 into which to grow.