Reseller gets delay on naming of source

A Weymouth ticket reseller yesterday won a reprieve from having to identify its source of Red Sox game seats after a single justice of the state Supreme Judicial Court agreed to hear its appeal of a lower court judge's order.

Justice Judith A. Cowin put on hold Quincy District Court Judge Mark S. Coven's ruling that Admit One Ticket Agency LLC must identify its ticket supplier by Monday morning or be charged with contempt of court. Cowin scheduled a hearing for Wednesday on Admit One's appeal.

Dorchester consumer activist Colman Herman has sued Admit One, accusing it of violating the state's anti scalping law when it quoted him a price of $500 for an $80 ticket to Red Sox-Yankee game in 2005. Coven earlier this week ordered Admit One to divulge the name of its ticket source, saying the supplier may have violated the anti scalping law.

Admit One says it is willing to identify its supplier, but wants that name kept confidential. The company said competitors would woo away the supplier, who provided 37 percent of all of Admit One's tickets in 2005, if the supplier was identified publicly.

Herman, who has represented himself in court, agreed to Admit One's request for confidentiality initially, but later changed his mind after Coven ruled the public had a strong interest in knowing the supplier's identity.

The Legislature later this month is expected to take up several bills that would amend or do away with the 1924 antiscalping law, which requires ticket resellers to be licensed by the state and charge no more than $2 above face value, plus certain service charges and business expenses.

In its appeal to Cowin, Admit One characterized Coven's order to publicly identify its ticket supplier as "draconian" and accused Herman of being a "serial plaintiff" who has filed "at least a dozen cases in Quincy District Court, all of which have been heard by Judge Coven."

Joel G. Beckman, an attorney representing Admit One, issued a statement in which he said Admit One would prevail at trial later this month because Herman's case is based only on a price quote for a ticket to a Red Sox-Yankees game in 2005.

"The Massachusetts ticket reselling statute, however, regulates the purchasing or reselling of tickets, not price quotes," Beckman said.

Beckman also said Herman could have obtained tickets to some Red Sox games in 2005 directly from the Red Sox but instead chose to file a lawsuit against Admit One because he is "only interested in media attention."

Herman said he filed the case because he was offended by the "obscene" prices being quoted by Admit One for Red Sox tickets, prices that he said violated the law. He said he didn't buy the ticket offered by Admit One because he couldn't afford it. Herman works as a freelance editor.

"Everyone knows they violated the antiscalping statute," Herman said in a statement. "What Admit One's high-priced lawyers are trying to do here is to find hyper-technicalities to get their guilty client off."

Bruce Mohl can be reached at mohl@globe.com.