Tough Mudder Class Action Plaintiffs Oppose Gym Spinoff

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

A group of former race participants claims that Tough Mudder is attempting to escape its class action settlement obligations by starting a gym business.

Tough Mudder runs popular obstacle course races that require participants to plod through lakes, over walls and through various other barriers.

The company was hit with a class action lawsuit after it moved a race, the Mudderella Boston, to Maine at the last minute.

Plaintiffs alleged that race participants either had to change their plans, including paying for lodging and travel expenses, or miss the race altogether and forfeit their registration fee.

According to the Tough Mudder class action lawsuit, Tough Mudder planned the race without obtaining a necessary permit in Massachusetts. Further, it moved the race not once, but twice, to a location 79 miles away from where it was supposed to be held.

In October 2018, Tough Mudder reportedly agreed to settle the class action lawsuit by paying $225,000. However, the plaintiffs say that the company is now attempting to use a foray into a studio gym business to run from their payments.

In a motion urging a Massachusetts federal court to issue a temporary injunction halting the company’s split, the plaintiffs allege that Tough Mudder is poised to sell its assets and claim that it cannot pay the settlement award.

According to the motion “the terms of the Settlement Agreement required Tough Mudder to pay Plaintiffs $225,000 on or before November 26, 2018. Tough Mudder failed to pay the settlement amount to Plaintiffs and is in material breach of the Settlement Agreement.”

“After Tough Mudder materially breached the Settlement Agreement, Plaintiffs learned from published reports that Tough Mudder intended to sell its assets,” continue the plaintiffs in their motion.

“Specifically, Tough Mudder plans to split its business into two separate entities. The new entity would be ‘Tough Mudder Bootcamp’ described by Tough Mudder as the ‘thriving gym business.’ The other entity would be the struggling obstacle course business.”

The plaintiffs say that Tough Mudder needs to be stopped from selling all of its assets, including registration fees from 30 events it has scheduled through 2019 across the country.

They also allege that Tough Mudder may argue that it is no longer bound by its class action settlement agreement because it was made in a state court, and the case has recently been removed to federal court.

The plaintiffs in the Tough Mudder class action lawsuit initially sought to represent runners who could not make the Mudderella Boston event after it was moved nearly 80 miles away to Maine.

In addition, the plaintiffs wanted to represent a subclass of those who attended the race, but had to pay additional lodging and travel expenses to do so.

The plaintiffs in the Tough Mudder class action lawsuit are represented by James L. O’Connor, C. Deborah Phillips and Patrick J. Osborne of Nickless Phillips and O’Connor, and Barry M. Altman of Altman & Altman.

The Tough Mudder Class Action Lawsuit is Pazol, et al. v. Tough Mudder Inc., et al., Case No. 4:19­-cv-­40010, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.

UPDATE: On Jan. 21, 2019, an executive at Tough Mudder says that despite allegations from runners who filed a class action lawsuit claiming that Tough Mudder financially injured them by moving a race location, the company will pay its settlement over the issue and is not planning to split into two companies to avoid doing so.