A law firm thought it had an easy case when a photo showed a Subway “footlong” that a customer had purchased was less than 12 inches. So they cooked up a class-action suit, hoping to extract a hefty settlement amount from Subway.
To make the case go away, Subway agreed to follow certain procedures that actually did nothing to ensure that every footlong is 12 inches — the amount of bread in each sandwich is uniform, but the baking process sometimes result in length variations — and pay the lawyers $525,000. The district judge approved of that settlement. One member of the class, however, did not approve — Ted Frank, who directs the Class Action Fairness project at Competitive Enterprise Institute.
His opposition threw the case into the Seventh Circuit, where the panel, in an opinion by Judge Diane Sykes that pulled no punches, reversed. She called this kind of litigation a “racket” and declared the settlement “utterly worthless” to consumers.
I write about this wonderful case at Forbes.
Judge Sykes, btw, is on President Trump’s list of prospects for the Supreme Court. I’d say that this opinion is a big point in her favor when the next seat opens on the Court.