Subway is asking the court to sanction the plaintiff and her attorneys (Picture: REUTERS)
The woman who sued Subway over the contents of the sandwich shop’s tuna has asked the judge to dismiss her case.
Nilima Amin, one of the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against the chain, asked a judge to dismiss her case due to severe morning sickness and ‘debilitating’ conditions of her pregnancy.
Amin filed the suit in January 2021, claiming that the popular fast food sandwich shop’s ‘100% tuna’ pate contained little to no actual tuna.
According to a motion Amin filed on April 20, she discovered she was pregnant with her third child in early January 2023.
Shortly afterwards, Amin began experiencing ‘severe morning sickness and associated medical issues caused by the pregnancy.’ These symptoms continue up to the present day, the plaintiff said.
According to Amin’s statement to the court, her symptoms were so severe, they ‘made attempting to read documents and/or participate in litigation extremely difficult if not out of the question.’
She continued: ‘The adverse medical impact of my pregnancy caused me to face undue delay in meeting litigation deadlines. Consequently, I could not focus on and had extreme difficulty assisting with and responding to discovery requests.’
Amin’s lawyers are asking Judge Jon Tigar to dismiss the case without prejudice, leaving the door open for the plaintiff to sue again when her health improves.
Amin’s case was based on scientific data collected from tests done on 50 grams of tuna products that were purchased from 20 different Subway stores.
‘Of twenty samples tested, nineteen of them had no detectable tuna DNA sequences whatsoever,’ her lawyers said. They did claim to find chicken DNA in all 20 samples, as well as cattle DNA and pork DNA in some of the others.
Additionally, Amin ran samples through rounds of polymerase chain reaction tests, or PCR tests, which was detailed in a report published by the New York Times.
However, Subway’s attorneys are now asking the court to sanction Amin and her lawyers for filing a ‘frivolous’ lawsuit.
‘If ever there was a case that demands the imposition of sanctions against counsel for litigating in bad faith, it is this,’ Subway’s attorneys wrote in a brief filed on May 4.
Over two years after they filed this class action alleging fabricated and reckless claims that Subway’s tuna is not tuna, the plaintiff’s lawyers across four law firms seek to abandon the lawsuit now that they are being forced to actually prove their claims.’
‘Having absolutely nothing to hide, Subway voluntarily provided the plaintiff’s counsel with documentation detailing its tuna supply chain in such detail that they could track Subway’s tuna from the exact location in the ocean where the fish was caught, to the fishery that processed and packaged the tuna, all the way to the Subway restaurants where the tuna was prepared and sold to customers.’
Subway’s lawyers called the case ‘exorbitantly expensive’ for the restaurant chain, who they say ‘suffered extensive harm to its business and goodwill as a result of the media frenzy created by those sensational allegations.’
The chain is seeking a total payout of $617,955.49 to cover its legal fees for the lawsuit.
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Subway is seeking a total payout of $617,955.49 to cover its legal fees for the lawsuit.