I am in Cincinnati Ohio. Sorry for the long explanation, but being a former court reporter and paralegal, I know the more information that is given the better:
I hired a personal trainer in 2015. I was not required to join the gym in which he trained me. I trained with him 6 days a week for 1 hour long sessions at the set time of 8 am. This is where it gets tricky. There was another girl and her husband that went there that trained with the same trainer, they were, however, members of the gym. For whatever reasons she saw fit, she started a lot of gym drama by talking about me. I never did anything about her gossip. One day someone at the gym started telling me the things she said and I made a comment, not really anything mean but said she needed to worry about her own business and stay out of mine. Her husband was basically stalking another female trainer there and I commented on it. It got back to the girl that was doing the gossiping and she cornered me in the locker room. I told her to leave me alone and all would be fine. At this point it got worse. It went from gossip to bullying, where she would make derogatory statements under her breath to me directly. The owner was fully aware of the conflict as well, and he witnessed her husband yelling at me in the middle of the gym floor in front of several people in which the husband of gossip girl called me, "a white trash C*nt. The gym owner did absolutely nothing. Even when I turned around and said "are you really going to let this continue? Some time went on and I continued on, but another girl, a member and a trainer at this gym got into a heated verbal altercation with the gossip girl, at which time the gossip girl decided she was not going to stay and cancelled her membership. So now she no longer goes to the gym and everything is quiet for a few months. Then out of the blue in February of 2017, gossip girl, who is no longer a member at this gym puts up a FB post about me and a screenshot of a comment I had made, in which the owner of the gym saw it, and told me I could not come to the gym anymore to train. My trainer was fully aware of the issues and not once did he speak to the owner of the gym, nor did the owner of the gym ask me about any thing that was said or done.
Here is my dilemma: In February of 2017 My trainer told me to join another gym, which was way out of my way of travel and he would train me at that gym, He was already a member at this gym and it was about 8 minutes travel from the original gym I was training at. Key point, I had to join and pay extra to train there. In joining I had to sign a 2 year contract, which I read and fully understood. Before joining I asked my trainer, via text message, if this would be a problem, that I did not want to sign a contract if he wasn't committed, in which he replied "I'm in it for the long haul, there will be no problems." Unfortunately from the get go scheduling was a problem. He had to fit me in and would constantly be late, cancel or not show up because he forgot about my appointment. Finally after about 2 months of this, he gave me a set time of 2:15 everyday. I have that as a text also in which he states he didn't know why he didn't think of it sooner to put me as his last appointment of the day. I want to point out, that he was also a member of this gym so being his last appointment of the day should have posed no conflict for him. His excuses got more and more frequent and a friend of mine whom he also trained, messaged me and told me to beware, that the trainer had made a comment about "trimming the fat" from his schedule. He had started an online training company. Then in August 2017 I got the text, he was not going to train me anymore due to a conflict in scheduling and travel. I continued to go for about a month but the travel was inconvenient so I went to another gym. Now I am stuck paying the gym membership of $53 for 2 years at a gym I will not be using. The only reason I joined that particular gym was because he was a member, they were willing to let me pay extra for his training. Had it not been for that, I would have never joined. There were gyms that were closer to me that had the same equipment and time availability. I was also told by a staff member at this particular gym that the trainer had his membership revoked due to derogatory statements he had made in one of his online training videos on Facebook, which leads me to believe this is also the reason he stopped training me.
I have since paid for the gym membership in full and cancelled it.
I have every text message that the trainer sent me, including but not limited to him not showing up, him being late and him cancelling appointments at the last minute.
First: would this be considered a legal binding written contract since all communications about joining the gym were via text message?
Second: Can I sue the trainer for the total cost of the gym membership, which was roughly around $3,000?
Third: If I can sue the trainer for the total cost of the gym membership, can I sue him for anything else?
I hired a personal trainer in 2015. I was not required to join the gym in which he trained me. I trained with him 6 days a week for 1 hour long sessions at the set time of 8 am. This is where it gets tricky. There was another girl and her husband that went there that trained with the same trainer, they were, however, members of the gym. For whatever reasons she saw fit, she started a lot of gym drama by talking about me. I never did anything about her gossip. One day someone at the gym started telling me the things she said and I made a comment, not really anything mean but said she needed to worry about her own business and stay out of mine. Her husband was basically stalking another female trainer there and I commented on it. It got back to the girl that was doing the gossiping and she cornered me in the locker room. I told her to leave me alone and all would be fine. At this point it got worse. It went from gossip to bullying, where she would make derogatory statements under her breath to me directly. The owner was fully aware of the conflict as well, and he witnessed her husband yelling at me in the middle of the gym floor in front of several people in which the husband of gossip girl called me, "a white trash C*nt. The gym owner did absolutely nothing. Even when I turned around and said "are you really going to let this continue? Some time went on and I continued on, but another girl, a member and a trainer at this gym got into a heated verbal altercation with the gossip girl, at which time the gossip girl decided she was not going to stay and cancelled her membership. So now she no longer goes to the gym and everything is quiet for a few months. Then out of the blue in February of 2017, gossip girl, who is no longer a member at this gym puts up a FB post about me and a screenshot of a comment I had made, in which the owner of the gym saw it, and told me I could not come to the gym anymore to train. My trainer was fully aware of the issues and not once did he speak to the owner of the gym, nor did the owner of the gym ask me about any thing that was said or done.
Here is my dilemma: In February of 2017 My trainer told me to join another gym, which was way out of my way of travel and he would train me at that gym, He was already a member at this gym and it was about 8 minutes travel from the original gym I was training at. Key point, I had to join and pay extra to train there. In joining I had to sign a 2 year contract, which I read and fully understood. Before joining I asked my trainer, via text message, if this would be a problem, that I did not want to sign a contract if he wasn't committed, in which he replied "I'm in it for the long haul, there will be no problems." Unfortunately from the get go scheduling was a problem. He had to fit me in and would constantly be late, cancel or not show up because he forgot about my appointment. Finally after about 2 months of this, he gave me a set time of 2:15 everyday. I have that as a text also in which he states he didn't know why he didn't think of it sooner to put me as his last appointment of the day. I want to point out, that he was also a member of this gym so being his last appointment of the day should have posed no conflict for him. His excuses got more and more frequent and a friend of mine whom he also trained, messaged me and told me to beware, that the trainer had made a comment about "trimming the fat" from his schedule. He had started an online training company. Then in August 2017 I got the text, he was not going to train me anymore due to a conflict in scheduling and travel. I continued to go for about a month but the travel was inconvenient so I went to another gym. Now I am stuck paying the gym membership of $53 for 2 years at a gym I will not be using. The only reason I joined that particular gym was because he was a member, they were willing to let me pay extra for his training. Had it not been for that, I would have never joined. There were gyms that were closer to me that had the same equipment and time availability. I was also told by a staff member at this particular gym that the trainer had his membership revoked due to derogatory statements he had made in one of his online training videos on Facebook, which leads me to believe this is also the reason he stopped training me.
I have since paid for the gym membership in full and cancelled it.
I have every text message that the trainer sent me, including but not limited to him not showing up, him being late and him cancelling appointments at the last minute.
First: would this be considered a legal binding written contract since all communications about joining the gym were via text message?
Second: Can I sue the trainer for the total cost of the gym membership, which was roughly around $3,000?
Third: If I can sue the trainer for the total cost of the gym membership, can I sue him for anything else?
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