Appeals Court Throws Out Settlement in Subway ‘Footlong’ Case

Wall Street Journal discusses the Subway ‘footlong’ settlement with Ted Frank.

In a case alleging Subway restaurant consumers got too little dough, judges now say plaintiffs’ lawyers got too much.

The legal saga over Subway’s “footlong” sandwich took an unexpected turn Friday when a federal appeals court in Chicago threw out a settlement that paid lawyers but not sub purchasers and ruled that the case should never have been allowed to become a class action.

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The ruling was a victory for Theodore Frank, a lawyer with the Competitive Enterprise Institute and a longtime critic of the class-action system. Mr. Frank was a member of the class and objected to the settlement approved by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman.

Mr. Frank on Friday called the Subway case an “abuse of the class-action process,” praising the Seventh Circuit judges for refusing to rubber-stamp the settlement.

He said it isn’t often that an appeals court second-guesses the judgment of district judges when the distribution settlement proceeds between attorneys and class representatives is questioned.

Read the full article at Wall Street Journal.