FDD Items 3 & 4 · 2025 filing
Heavyweight Waste litigation history
What Heavyweight Waste disclosed about lawsuits, arbitrations and bankruptcy in the 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document. Item 3 lists the material legal actions a franchisor must report; Item 4 covers bankruptcy. This is the franchisor's own disclosure, not a court record, and not legal advice.
Items 3 & 4 at a glance
What the filing discloses
- Cases disclosed
- 4
- Item 3, as counted in the filing
- Largest disclosed settlement
- $2.9M
- As stated in Item 3
- Bankruptcy (Item 4)
- None
- Franchisor, parent, predecessor or officer
- Filing year
- 2025
- Disclosures cover the prior ten years
Extracted from the 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document
Item 3: litigation
4 cases involving affiliate Smash Franchise Partners: (1) former franchisees won arbitration award of $2.875M for misrepresentation; (2) former franchisee settled for $80K refund + $67.5K deposit return; (3) Republic Services federal lawsuit over property damage and interference; (4) former SMT Holdings shareholders suing Justin Haskin for fraud in ownership transfer
Disclosure signals that moved the score
How this shows up in the verdict
- Multiple active and concluded litigations involving misrepresentation, with a $2.875M award to plaintiffs indicating substantiated fraud claims
- High 55.6% YoY unit growth (18 new units) appears unsustainable given litigation backdrop and may indicate aggressive recruitment masking unit attrition
- Going Concern status of False is critical red flag suggesting potential financial instability of franchisor
The verdict grade is FranchiseVerdict's editorial assessment across SBA loan performance, unit growth, revenue and disclosure signals. It is not investment advice.
Before you weigh a lawsuit
How to read Item 3
A franchisor must disclose pending actions and any material civil action involving the franchise relationship, plus convictions or civil judgments for fraud, unfair or deceptive practices, or franchise-law violations, going back ten years. A case the franchisor brought against a franchisee counts too. Item 3 does not include every dispute: settled claims below the materiality line and matters resolved in private arbitration can be absent.
Questions worth asking current and former franchisees, using the contact list in Item 20:
- Were you, or anyone you know in the system, party to a dispute with the franchisor?
- Was it resolved by settlement, arbitration or a court, and on what terms?
- Has the number of disputes gone up or down since you signed?