Same problem here, solved.. I could not lift my seat to access my jack and spare tire replacement tools. You are not an idiot. There is a fabric tab, but that is a guide for the fabric "pull" that slides under it connecting to a latch that latches the lifting seat to the fold-down back rest seat. If one of your seats tilts up, you will see how the mechanism works. I suppose this design is in the case of a frontal accident with child seats, etc, but I digress.
If you cannot reach your hand behind the stuck seat to pull the safety catch forward, you may need to remove the seat cushion to correct the problem, its very easy.
1. Remove the two plastic hinge covers, by hand, at the front base of the "sticky" fold-up seat.
2. Remove the two 12MM bolts that connect the seat to the floor board.
3. Slide the seat out forward and then out.
Once you remove the seat the solution should seem obvious. You can see on the rear under-side of the fold-up seat that there are two fabric loops. One connects to a plastic safety catch that keeps the seat from lifting. The fabric tab connected to it must come forward, under the other fabric loop so that the latch loop stays accessible when the seat is down. To lift the seat, you must pull the latch-loop forward to keep the safety latch from catching on the back seat rest.
Another permanent solution may be that when you have the seat out or lifted up, to use a Phillips screwdriver and just unscrew and remove the plastic catch entirely. There may be a very important safety reason to have the latch there, so I don't want to advise you to do this but that was my inclination (ok...it was actually rage) after having a flat tire and spending precious minutes messing with the seat and not being able to access the tire jack. I think I used my entire repertoire of expletives.
