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Bally Fitness Faces Pa. Class Suit Over Startup Fees

A Pennsylvania federal judge has approved a class of more than 140,000 Bally Total Fitness health club members who allegedly paid excessive startup fees over defense objections that membership costs were not common to the class.

U.S. District Judge Gene Pratter of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said the plaintiffs met the requirements for certification.

Under federal law class-action plaintiffs must show that the potential class is so large as to favor a class suit over individual ones, that class members suffered a common injury, that the named plaintiffs' claims are typical of the larger class and that the class representatives can adequately protect the interests of the larger class.

According to the complaint, Estelle Robinson joined a Philadelphia Bally health club in 2002 and paid more than $600 in membership fees. Gene Swindell joined a club in the Pittsburgh area the same year and paid a $1,000 membership fee, the suit says.

Robinson and Swindell sued the company and two franchises in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas in December 2004. Bally removed the suit to federal court in 2005.

The plaintiffs allege that the company violated the state's Health Club Act and consumer-protection law by charging excessive fees.

The Health Club Act says initiation fees should be "reasonably related" to a club's costs for starting memberships.

The plaintiffs seek to represent all people who joined a Bally health club in Pennsylvania since December 1998 and were charged more than $100 in membership fees.

The defendants argued that the class includes people who suffered no injury.

They said people who used their memberships and those who did not want to rescind their membership contracts could not establish liability.

Judge Pratter rejected that argument, saying that if the defendants did violate the law, all class members did suffer an injury regardless of their personal feelings about the fees. The suit's goal is not to void all contracts, but rather to give members the option of voiding them, he said.

If the defendants violated the law by charging excessive fees, that would affect all the plaintiffs, and any differences in their health club memberships is a minor consideration in certifying the class, the judge explained.

The proposed class is large, the question of excessive membership fees is common to the class, and the allegedly excessive fees the named plaintiffs paid are typical of the class regardless of membership variations and benefits, he said.

The plaintiffs therefore adequately represent the class's interests, Judge Pratter held.

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