FDD Items 3 & 4 · 2025 filing
Heights Wellness Retreat litigation history
What Heights Wellness Retreat 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
- 3
- Item 3, as counted in the filing
- Largest disclosed settlement
- $345K
- As stated in Item 3
- Bankruptcy (Item 4)
- Disclosed
- Franchisor, parent, predecessor or officer
- Filing year
- 2025
- Disclosures cover the prior ten years
Extracted from the 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document
Item 3: litigation
Three prior actions disclosed: Hayes v. Massage Heights (arbitration, 2019, franchisee awarded $344,933 after mutual breach finding, settled 2024); Busch Management Group v. Massage Heights (Texas court, 2020, settled with area rep agreement termination); Massage Heights v. Relax Investments (arbitration, 2018, respondent awarded $88,137.50 plus renewal rights). All resolved.
Disclosed in the 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document
Item 4: bankruptcy
Julia (Julie) Green, VP of Marketing, filed Chapter 13 bankruptcy in 2019 (Eastern District of NC, Docket 19-02644-5-DMW) due to unforeseen employment changes; discharged August 8, 2024.
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?