Deal is OKd in Subway lawsuits

Size does matter after all, in sandwiches if not classaction settlements.

After lengthy litigation over the measurement of Subway’s foot-long and 6inch sandwiches, a federal judge in Milwaukee has signed off on a preliminary resolution of several classaction lawsuits over the issue.

The final approved class may be one of the largest in any kind of lawsuit — everyone who bought a Subway sandwich in the U.S. since 2003.

No court records even try to put a number to that besides tens of millions; there are 27,000 Subway shops in the U.S.

But all that most customers will get from the deal is the assurance that Subway now pays more attention to the dimensions of its subs.

Nine named plaintiffs could get up to $1,000 each.

Despite the size of the class, the final payout for attorney fees and costs, including the class representative payments, will not exceed $525,000, according to court records.

After one Subway customer’s lament that his footlong was not in fact 12 inches long took off on social media in 2012, several lawsuits followed in various state and federal courts.

They were combined into one action that landed before U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman in Milwaukee.

The defendant in the actions, Subway’s franchiser Doctor’s Associates Inc., said in a statement that nothing in the settlement found that Subway’s marketing was unlawful or improper.