Lt Colonel Battie, US Army reservist and owner of two SUBWAY sandwich franchises, was called up in 2005 to serve in Iraq. When his deployment ended, he returned home to find that SUBWAY had terminated the leases on both of his locations. Represented by Mullin Law, Lt Colonel Battie filed suit under the United States Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, saying that SUBWAY wrongfully terminating his lease contracts without a court order. The court has granted his motion for summary judgement against SUBWAY, with damages to be determined in a separate trial scheduled for next year.
The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act was passed in 1940 but older version date back to the Civil War when Congress passed a moratorium on all civil suits against Union soldiers and sailors. In its current version it is meant to postpone or suspend certain civil obligations while on active duty. The Act may now be found in the Appendix to Title 50 of the U.S. Code, Sections 501-596.
