The National Aquarium Is Being Sued Over a $4.95 “Transaction Fee” — for the Second Time. A Maryland Court Threw the First Case Out in March. Nobody Reporting This Has Mentioned That.

In October 2025, a case called Marissa Aguilar-Leigh, et al. v. National Aquarium, Inc., No. C-24-CV-25-008307, was filed in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City over the same $4.95 fee. There was a hearing on February 9, 2026 before Judge Catherine Chen. On March 11, 2026 the court entered judgment: dismissed. On April 27, 2026 the plaintiffs' motion to alter or amend that judgment was denied. The case is closed.

Seventeen days after that denial, the same lawyer refiled — in federal court, under a different state's consumer statute.

And with two of the same plaintiffs. The Maryland docket lists three plaintiffs: Marissa Aguilar-Leigh of Glen Burnie, Maryland, and Maura Matvey and Benjamin Lagos, both of Washington, D.C. All three were represented by Brandy Ann Peeples, who entered her appearance on October 1, 2025 — and who signed the federal complaint seven months later. What changed between the two cases is the Maryland plaintiff, who is gone, and the law being invoked, which is now the District of Columbia's.

This is not a footnote. The aquarium's motion to dismiss attaches the complete state-court record as its exhibits A through I, of eleven. Whatever persuaded Judge Chen in March is the centre of the defence now.

We could not read why the state case was dismissed. The memorandum opinion is not in the state portal and is not freely available; it exists in the federal file only as a paid PACER attachment. So we cannot tell you whether the dismissal was on the merits or on a pleading defect, and we are not going to guess.

The two Washington, D.C. plaintiffs from the dismissed state case — Maura Matvey and Benjamin Lagos, who bought tickets in August and September 2025 — say the aquarium's ticketing site adds an “unavoidable, hidden $4.95 'Transaction Fee'” to every online sale, and that it does not appear until the end of a multi-page checkout.

From the complaint: the aquarium “does not disclose its mandatory Transaction Fee until after a consumer has invested substantial time choosing a date and time, has considered whether to buy add on experiences, and had decided to purchase based on the advertised price after clicking through a multi-page checkout process.” The pleading calls this drip pricing and a “bait-and-switch pricing technique.”

There is exactly one cause of action: the D.C. Consumer Protection Procedures Act, D.C. Code § 28-3901 et seq., specifically § 28-3904(e), (f), (f-1) and (h). The class is limited to people in the District of Columbia who bought tickets where the mandatory fees were not in the displayed price.

And the aquarium disputes the factual premise, on the record. Its motion attaches Exhibit J, “Content of What is This? Hyperlink,” and Exhibit K, “Content of Checkout Page.” In other words, it is arguing that the fee was disclosed and explained, not hidden. These are allegations on one side and exhibits on the other; no court has decided either.

The case is in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, before Judge Adam B. Abelson. The defendant is a Maryland corporation headquartered in Baltimore — a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN 52-1121163, with total revenue of $55.64 million in 2023. Both plaintiffs live in D.C. Federal jurisdiction rests on the Class Action Fairness Act.

Maryland law is never invoked. That is a choice, and an interesting one, because Maryland has had an all-in pricing law since July 1, 2024 — SB 539, codified at Md. Code Ann., Com. Law § 13-310.1. Its text requires that “the listing for a ticket and each step of a transaction to purchase a ticket shall … clearly and conspicuously disclose the total price of the ticket, including all fees and taxes other than shipping costs that are not determinable at a step in the transaction,” and it reaches “ticket issuers,” which the statute defines to include “an operator of a venue.” Not just resellers.

Whether it reaches an aquarium is genuinely open. The statute hangs on the words “event” and “entertainment event,” and defines neither. Notably, the complaint describes the tickets as being “to attend specific scheduled daily entertainment events on the premises” — language that fits the Maryland statute almost exactly — and then does not plead it.

Every story about a hidden fee since May 2025 gets asked the same question: doesn't the new FTC rule ban this? For an aquarium ticket, on the rule's own wording, no.

16 C.F.R. Part 464, the Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees, took effect May 12, 2025. Its scope provision is short enough to quote in full:

“Covered Good or Service means: (1) Live-event tickets; or (2) Short-term lodging, including temporary sleeping accommodations at a hotel, motel, inn, short-term rental, vacation rental, or other place of lodging.”

That is the entire universe the rule governs. We searched the full 3.3 MB rule document: the words aquarium, zoo, museum, theme park and amusement park appear zero times — against 44 hits for “Covered Good or Service,” 223 for “live-event” and 178 for “short-term lodging” in the same search, so the absence is a real result and not a broken query.

The Commission said as much in passing while rejecting an industry argument. Answering a commenter who claimed online convenience fees are reasonably avoidable, it wrote: “Although a movie ticket is not a Covered Good or Service, similar convenience fees are common in the live-event ticketing industry. The Commission disagrees with the commenter …”. Read the whole passage and the FTC is expanding its reasoning to covered live-event fees, not narrowing its scope — but the aside about movie tickets is unambiguous about what is outside. Its business guidance describes the covered category as “concerts, sporting events, music, theater, and other live performances that audiences watch as they occur.”

Timed general admission to a building full of fish is not a live performance watched as it occurs. That reading is ours, applying the FTC's own standard — the Commission has never addressed aquariums directly, and a separately ticketed show inside a venue would be a harder question.

And even if the rule did apply, it would not help these plaintiffs: it creates no private right of action. Only the FTC enforces it. Section 464.4 preserves stricter state law — which is precisely why this case is pleaded under the D.C. statute and not under federal law.

The venue-fee wave started in New York, where a 2022 amendment to Arts and Cultural Affairs Law § 25.07 requires all-in pricing for “places of entertainment.” Under that statute, the cases settle.

They do not always settle, though. In Frias v. City Winery N.Y., LLC the New York County Supreme Court dismissed the complaint outright in October 2024 on the statute's own terms.

They do not always settle, though. In Frias v. City Winery N.Y., LLC the New York County Supreme Court dismissed the complaint outright in October 2024 on the statute's own terms.

Outside New York, without a specific all-in pricing statute, they grind. Three separate suits against SeaWorld's parent are live and none has settled: Mouzer (S.D. Fla., November 2025), Petrun (S.D. Cal., January 2026) and Marks (S.D. Cal., October 2024, partially dismissed in September 2025 and continuing in narrowed form).

The AMC settlement is the one that puts a number on the scale of this practice: the company acknowledged $10,789,345 in convenience fees on 4,666,392 tickets bought by 1,476,486 people.

We found no reported case against another aquarium, botanical garden or science centre. We searched public sources only, so read that as “not found,” not as “none exists.”

No settlement. No class certified. No claim form. No deadline. The motion to dismiss is undecided. The opposition was filed August 17, and on August 31 the parties jointly asked to move the reply deadline to September 2. Whether the reply was actually filed we cannot see — the free docket mirror stops on August 31, and we are not going to report a filing we have not seen. If you see a “National Aquarium claim form,” it is not real.

One arithmetic note for anyone reading the filing closely. The complaint asserts more than $5 million is at stake and supports it in a footnote with “at least 3,500 tickets.” At $4.95 each, 3,500 tickets is about $17,325. The $5 million threshold is only reached through the D.C. statute's $1,500-per-violation statutory damages — 3,500 × $1,500 = $5.25 million. Both sums also quietly equate tickets with orders: paragraph 3 says the fee attaches to “each sale,” while the footnote counts tickets, and one order can carry several. Both sums also quietly equate tickets with orders: paragraph 3 says the fee attaches to “each sale,” while the footnote counts tickets, and one order can carry several. The aquarium is challenging jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1), among other grounds, so this is not an idle observation.

Separately, D.C. has passed its own drip-pricing ban — B26-0174, enacted as D.C. Act 26-344 on June 25, 2026 — but it is still under congressional review and has not become law. It would not apply to 2025 purchases in any event.

We will update this page when Judge Abelson rules.