24 Hour Fitness Class Action Says Members Charged Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

A 24 Hour Fitness member has filed a class action lawsuit challenging her gym’s practice of charging membership fees despite COVID-19 closures.

The gym fees COVID-19 class action lawsuit was filed by Brenda Labib, a California resident who says that she has been a 24 Hour Fitness member since 2019. She claims she pays $46.99 per month for her membership.

All 24 Hour Fitness locations reportedly closed as of March 16 to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.

However, the plaintiff says she was still charged for her membership. Labib goes on to claim that she was not refunded any part of the monthly fee during the time the 24 Hour Fitness class action lawsuit was filed.

According to the 24 Hour Fitness class action, the collection of membership fees when a gym is closed is unlawful. The plaintiff says this practice violates the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act, the Unfair Competition Law, the False Advertising Law, and California’s Health Studio Services Contract Law.

The practice allegedly constitutes negligent misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, fraud, money had and received, breach of contract, and conversion.

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The COVID-19 outbreak class action lawsuit says the gym’s practice of collecting membership fees while not allowing members to use the gym injured Labib and many other residents.

The gym fees coronavirus class action lawsuit seeks to represent a Class of 24 Hour Fitness members around the country, and a subclass of members in California who were charged membership fees after March 16, subsequent to the time the gyms closed.

According to Labib, 24 Hour Fitness sent a note to members on March 16 announcing that all gym locations would be closed starting midnight that night, and alerted customers that the gyms would be closed indefinitely.

Despite the closure, the gym reportedly continued to collect fees from its members across all 430 gyms in the country, and in 140 cities in California. Allegedly, these fees were charged automatically, to credit or debit cards already on file in association with customers’ accounts.

Labib argues that this practice of wrongfully charging fees when gyms are closed effectively cheats customers out of a total of $120 million in membership fees each month. The plaintiff notes that the average fee paid per month is between $29.99 to $34.99, but they can be as high as $50 per month, depending on the location of the gym. 

The 24 Hour Fitness fees class action lawsuit argues that a class action lawsuit is the ideal way to address the membership fee issue.

Allegedly, each member’s wrongfully charged fee is too small of an amount to warrant an individual lawsuit.

However if counted together, the damages done by the gym’s decision to charge fees while the gyms are closed is significant.

The 24 Hour Fitness class action lawsuit stresses that the gym’s practice does financially injure customers, noting that customers purchased their gym memberships solely to have access to the gym.

Labib notes that the gym’s marketing centers around the idea that customers can have constant access to the gym facilities — 24 hours per day, as the name implies. However, this advertisement is proven false under the current conditions, claims Labib. 

She says that had she known she would not have the advertised access to her gym but would still be charged membership fees, she would not have purchased a membership, would not have agreed to its terms, or would not have paid as much for it as she did. She seeks damages for herself and similarly affected customers, including a reimbursement of the fees paid for memberships while the gyms were closed.

CNN explains that California was the first state to implement a statewide order for people to say at home to slow the spread of coronavirus. This order also required non-essential businesses, including gyms such as 24 Hour Fitness and other health clubs, to close to help prevent transmission of the coronavirus.

Labib is represented by Yeremey Krivoshey, L. Timothy Fisher, and Scott A. Bursor of Bursor & Fisher PA.

The 24 Hour Fitness Membership Fee COVID-19 Class Action Lawsuit is Brenda Labib v. 24 Hour Fitness USA Inc., Case No. 4:20-cv-02134, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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