National Sandwich Day Sharpens Hunger for Subway Class Action Decision

Today is National Sandwich Day. Its origins are shrouded in history, but curious students of marketing will probably be satisfied by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s authoritative Food Calendar.

It’s a good day to get a deal on a sandwich. It’s also a good day to take note of the case we’ve got pending, challenging the class action settlement in the Subway Footlong Sandwich Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation.

The original class action lawsuit had claimed that Subway’s “footlong” sandwiches sometimes fell slightly short of their advertised size, even though the actual weight of the dough and the amount of ingredients was uniform for each sandwich. The named plaintiffs in the lawsuit conceded that the exact length of the sandwiches didn’t affect their purchasing plans. Despite this, the plaintiffs’ lawyers got court approval for a fee award and payments to class representatives totaling $525,000.

At a hearing before the Seventh Circuit on September 8^th, CEI’s Ted Frank argued that the lower court’s approval of the settlement was contrary to case law, which establishes that class actions should not be allowed when their only effect is to enrich lawyers while producing no relief for the class members themselves. One of the judges called the settlement “a racket in every sense.”

We hungrily await a decision.