FDD Items 3 & 4 · 2025 filing
The Joint Chiropractic litigation history
What The Joint Chiropractic 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 (litigation) & 4 (bankruptcy) at a glance
What the filing discloses
- Cases disclosed
- 1
- Item 3, as counted in the filing
- Largest settlement, franchisor's own cases
- $800K
- As stated in Item 3
- Bankruptcy (Item 4)
- Disclosed · an officer
- Franchisor, parent, predecessor or officer
- Filing year
- 2025
- Disclosures cover the prior ten years
Item 3 (litigation) · 1 matter disclosed
Litigation cases
The franchisor
Concluded (1)
Carmel Mountain et al. v. The Joint
settledBrought by a franchisee · filed 2015-07-07 · American Arbitration Association (California) · 01-15-0004-1604
“… (Case No. 01-15-0004-1604) On July 7, 2015, a Demand for Arbitration was filed against us in California by the following former and/or current franchisees: Carmel Mountain The Joint Enterprises, Inc., Funny Bones, LLC,”Page 16 of the 2025 FDD, Item 3
Outcome: “On December 12, 2016, the parties entered into a settlement agreement whereby all parties disclaimed any liability or wrongdoing and mutually agreed that it was in their best interests to resolve their differences through settlement rather than arbitration.”
Item 3 lists the litigation the franchisor must disclose; a matter against a parent, an affiliate or a named officer is not a matter against the franchisor, and pending claims are allegations, not findings.
Disclosed in the 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document
Item 4: bankruptcy
Item 4 discloses the Chapter 11 of GGI Holdings, LLC (Case No. 20-31318), the Gold's Gym parent, where the franchisor's SVP of Development Craig Sherwood was Chief Development Officer. The filing states the proceeding did not involve The Joint Chiropractic.
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?