Business ProfileforFamily Fitness of Norton Shores, Inc.

Gov. Action
The following describes a pending government action that has been formally brought by a government agency but has not yet been resolved. We are providing a summary of the government's allegations, which have not yet been proven.

On December 7, 2017, the State of Michigan, 17th Circuit Court for Kent Count issued an Opinion and Order Granting Preliminary Injunction in the case of Bill Schuette, Attorney General of the State of Michigan v. Family Fitness.

Despite the Court's serious concerns about the propriety and the legality of the defendants' practices, the Court cannot impose a sweeping injunctive order that effectively provides the Attorney General of the State of Michigan with monetary relief that should more appropriately take the form of money damages available only at the conclusion of this case. In addition, the Court cannot use an injunction to alter or prescribe the contractual provisions that govern the relationships between defendants and its customers.

Accordingly, the Court shall enter a preliminary injunction that curtails the most abusive sharp practices of the defendants, but the Court must leave to another day some complicated matters such as appropriate financial relief and curtailment of the defendants' ability to enter into contractual relationships with customers.

Based on the Court's careful analysis of the nine requests from the Attorney General, it is ordered that defendant Family Fitness is prohibited and enjoined from engaging in the following activities:

Disallowing, preventing or ignoring any written cancellation made by a consumer seeking to terminate any membership or personal training agreement, regardless of when that agreement was entered into;

Applying the electronic signature of any Michigan consumer to any agreement without his or her express knowledge and consent;

Stating, or suggesting, that signing a new membership or personal training agreement is a prerequisite to removing any past debts from collection;

Maintaining or enforcing any membership agreement entered into by a consumer who entered into the agreement following a statement by Family Fitness that doing so would cause a prior debt claimed by Family Fitness to be removed from collections or otherwise resolved;

Telling any consumer that a membership, personal training session, or other benefit or prize is "free" or will be provided without charge if any costs or charges will be applied;

Using the promise of prizes to generate business, except to the extent Family Fitness fully complies with the requirements of MCL 450.903.

Gov. Action
The following describes a pending government action that has been formally brought by a government agency but has not yet been resolved. We are providing a summary of the government's allegations, which have not yet been proven.

On September 26, 2017, State of Michigan, Attorney General Bill Schuette filed a class action lawsuit against the West Michigan-based fitness chain, Family Fitness, in Kent County Circuit Court.

The complaint asks the Court to put a stop to various practices by Family Fitness that allegedly violate Michigan's Consumer Protection Act, and seeks monetary relief on behalf of consumers. This action comes after Schuette has received 286 consumer complaints against Family Fitness in 2017.

There are fourteen Family Fitness centers in West Michigan, with locations in Allendale, Alpine, Grand Rapids, Grandville, Holland, Muskegon, North Muskegon, Norton Shores, Plainwell, Portage, Sparta, Standale, and Wyoming.

In July 2017, the Attorney General issued a cease-and-desist order to Family Fitness after receiving numerous complaints asserting that the fitness chain was holding consumers responsible for paying hundreds, or even thousands of dollars on cancelled gym membership and personal training contracts. Many consumers had received credit reporting information showing they were being pursued by a collection agency acting on Family Fitness' behalf. In that notice, the Attorney General advised that his staff would continue reviewing documents and interviewing consumers and then would determine whether it was necessary to open a formal investigation or file a lawsuit.

A lawsuit became appropriate after the Attorney General's ongoing review revealed numerous other alleged violations of the Consumer Protection Act, including:
*Consumers have entered drawings and are told by telephone they have won free memberships, but--when they show up to collect their prizes--they learn there are actually monthly costs;
*Consumers who have won drawing prizes are not given any written description of the prize, notice that they will be subjected to a sales presentation when they come to collect it, nor any descriptions and costs of the services Family Fitness intends to solicit them about when they do come, as required by the Act;
*Misrepresentations were made to consumers at the time of signing up with Family Fitness. Such representations relate to topics including the involved costs, the duration of contracts, and the consumers' right to cancel contracts. Such misrepresentations range from false or misleading statements that the membership or personal training arrangements can be cancelled at any time, to failures to disclose important information--such as Family Fitness' expectation that a consumer doing a free trial must use the facilities a specified number of times in order to be able to cancel the free trial;
*For consumers who have had memberships with other gyms that have closed, Family Fitness has made confusing and misleading representations regarding their legal obligations to Family Fitness;
*In recent situations, Family Fitness appears to be putting consumers under duress to enter into new membership agreements by telling them that is the only way they can remove prior alleged debts for which the consumers have been put into a collections process.

Family Fitness operates through a series of limited liability companies formed under Michigan law, each of which has been named as a defendant in today's lawsuit.

The Attorney General anticipates bringing a motion for injunctive relief that will seek to require Family Fitness to adhere to the requirements of the Consumer Protection Act. Meanwhile, Family Fitness will have an opportunity to respond to the lawsuit by either filing a motion or answer with the Court.

Consumers may file a complaint online by going to Online Consumer Complaint/Inquiry, otherwise they may send their complaint by regular mail to Consumer Protection Division at P.O. Box 30213, Lansing, MI. 48909, or fax to (517)241-3771. If you have any questions, please call the Consumer Protection Division Monday through Friday from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM at (517)373-1140 or toll free 877-765-8388.