Snap Fitness Class Action Challenges So-Called ‘Club Enhancement Fee’

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A Snap Fitness club member has filed a class action lawsuit alleging the gym charges members to upgrade its facilities without authorization and also fails to provide instructions on how to cancel memberships.

Lead plaintiff Thomas Dwyer alleges his local Snap Fitness gym sprung a $35 “club enhancement fee” on him and other members to pay for upgrades to the gym. The plaintiff claims that the notice from his local gym blamed corporate for only giving a few weeks’ notice of the additional fee.

Further, Dwyer alleges Snap Fitness fails to provide customers with proper “notice of cancellation” under Ohio state law.

The plaintiff says he was blindsided in February of this year when he received notice that Snap Fitness would be billing him and others for an “enhancement fee” to upgrade the gym’s facilities. Dwyer says he then contacted his local gym because he could find any references to the extra fee in his contract.

According to the Snap Fitness class action, the local franchisee told Dwyer that corporate just added the fee a few weeks earlier and that is why it wasn’t in the plaintiff’s contract. The plaintiff alleges that when he expressed concern over the $35 fee, the local representative said that they would have to wait until corporate got back to them.

Dwyer alleges that Snap Fitness’ club enhancement fee violates the terms of the gym’s contract. Snap Fitness “has a common policy and practice of failing to comply with the terms and conditions of its contract by, among other things, improperly charging members a Club Enhancement Fee without any basis in the contracts or any agreement from the Plaintiff and the Class members,” argues the class action complaint.

In addition to breach of contract, the plaintiff claims that Snap Fitness was unjustly enriched by the enhancement fee.

Dwyer also alleges that Snap Fitness is in violation of Ohio state laws prohibiting unfair or deceptive acts or practices in connection with a consumer transaction. The plaintiff claims Snap Fitness deceived gym members by not including the enhancement fee in the terms of the contract they signed in order to join the gym.

Further, the class action lawsuit states that Snap Fitness is in violation of another Ohio law that requires gyms and other prepaid entertainment companies to provide customers with “an easily detachable duplicate ‘notice of cancelation’ form.”

The plaintiff is seeking to represent a nationwide Class of Snap Fitness members who were charged a Club Enhancement or similar fee along with a subclass of Ohio residents who signed a gym membership contract with Snap Fitness.

The plaintiff is seeking damages and a disgorgement of profit from the so-called club enhancement fee along with an injunction against the practice.

Dwyer is represented by Bryce Lenox of Giles Lenox.

The Snap Fitness Club Enhancement Fee Class Action Lawsuit is Thomas Dwyer v. Snap Fitness Inc., Case No. 1:17-cv-00455-MRB, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio.

UPDATE: On March 1, 2019, Snap Fitness agreed to a $2.9 million settlement to end a proposed class action lawsuit claiming that the fitness company charges unauthorized membership fees.