Class Action Claims Raritan Valley Country Club Owes Former Members Approx. $2.7M for Certificate Repayment

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Bridgewater, New Jersey’s Raritan Valley Country Club faces a proposed class action after allegedly changing its membership program so as to eliminate the opportunity for proprietary membership certificate buyers to be repaid the cost of the certificate upon their resignation from the club. 

The 25-page lawsuit contends that proposed class members purchased private golf proprietary memberships at Raritan Valley Country Club based on the club’s commitment to repay them upon resignation the cost of their proprietary membership certificates from the proceeds collected from other certificate holders. 

According to the complaint, Raritan Valley Country Club has breached its repayment commitment, in particular with members who resigned on or after January 1, 2008, and “shift[ed] the risk of nonpayment arising from the failure to sell the Proprietary Membership Certificates completely onto the Club’s former members.” The club’s recent membership program changes effectively guarantee that proprietary membership certificates will not be purchased, the suit relays.

The lawsuit alleges Raritan Valley Country Club owes roughly 200 former members an aggregate amount of approximately $2.7 million for the amounts they paid for their respective proprietary membership certificates, which grant a holder access to the club house and a full share of the property and assets of the club. At no time during the relevant time period did Raritan Valley Country Club or any of its marketing and sales materials indicate that the club could evade indefinitely its obligation to repay amounts paid for a proprietary membership certificate, the lawsuit claims. 

In order to buy a private golf proprietary membership since January 2008, Raritan Valley Country Club required prospective members to pay a “substantial non-refundable initiation fee,” a separate amount of between $12,970 and $20,000 for a certificate of membership and substantial, ongoing membership dues and fees, the lawsuit states. At all relevant times, the suit says, Raritan Valley Country Club represented that money paid for membership certificates would be repaid to members upon their resignation or death. The repaid money was to come from the proceeds the club made from the sale of private golf proprietary memberships, including the corresponding proprietary membership certificate, to incoming golf members, the case reads. 

According to the suit, however, the club, beginning around 2008, enacted a series of changes to its membership program that had the effect of breaching its commitment to repay former members within a reasonable time after their resignation or death. More specifically, the club enacted a change whereby certificate repayment to former members became wholly conditional upon the club’s continuing sale of private golf proprietary memberships with full golf privileges, the case claims. 

Importantly, the complaint continues, the club, around 2009, began to sell and continues to sell non-proprietary memberships with full golf privileges, which effectively eliminated the need for any incoming member to buy a proprietary membership certificate. Upon information and belief, Raritan Valley Country Club has not sold any private golf proprietary memberships or corresponding proprietary membership certificates, and has not offered such for sale, over the last several years, according to the suit. 

“The effect of RVCC’s actions and inactions since 2008 as set forth above has been to essentially eliminate any possibility for Plaintiffs to obtain repayment from RVCC of the amounts they paid for their respective Proprietary Membership Certificates,” the lawsuit contends. 

The suit looks to represent all former Raritan Valley Country Club members whose memberships in the club were terminated on or after January 1, 2008 due to resignation or death and who have not received repayment from the club of the amounts they paid for their proprietary membership certificates.

The case, initially filed in Somerset County Superior Court on September 15, was removed to New Jersey District Court on October 22. 

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