Bay Area gym members may find some solace in the recent court ruling on the opposite coast, as Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell secured a multi-million-dollar judgement against a former CEO of a major fitness chain. According to a release from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office, Patrick Walsh, ex-CEO of Town Sports International LLC, operating as Boston Sports Club (BSC), has been ordered to pay nearly $4 million in restitution to former customers who were charged for gym services during the COVID-19 pandemic closures.
The Suffolk County Superior Court found in favor of the AG’s lawsuit on all counts, deeming Walsh’s actions during April 2020 particularly egregious. BSC had closed its doors in mid-March due to the pandemic, yet members were still billed for the month of April—a time when they had no access to the facilities. The court ruled to “immediately cancel” these charges, marking an effort to rectify the injustice brought upon consumers. “After years of litigation and a multiweek trial, I am incredibly proud of my team who fought tirelessly to secure meaningful relief for Massachusetts consumers who were unfairly charged for services they could not use during the global pandemic,” Campbell said in a statement obtained by the AG’s office.
Detailed within the judgement was the fact that the health club’s members had a legitimate right to cancel their contracts without penalty, given the “substantial change” in operations prompted by the indefinite pandemic shutdown. When they attempted to do just that, more than 2,000 complaints were lodged with the AG’s office by members who encountered significant hurdles while trying to cancel their BSC memberships. In addition to being billed for the month of April, members received deceptive letters from the company, falsely claiming they would get account credits once the clubs reopened—a promise that was not honored unless members voiced their complaints individually…