The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed the denial of a motion to compel arbitration after concluding, contrary to the district court’s decision, that a “sign-in wrap agreement” provided conspicuous notice of...more
Takeaway: We have written many articles about the use of consumer-facing terms containing mandatory arbitration agreements. “Clickwrap” agreements – agreements that require consumers affirmatively to accept terms – are the...more
Takeaway: We have written many articles about how businesses seek to enter enforceable arbitration agreements containing class action waivers with their customers, whether through “browsewrap” or “clickwrap” agreements or by...more
A district court in the Seventh Circuit recently granted a motion to compel arbitration and stay proceedings in a putative class action involving Hyundai’s Blue Link crash assistance program. Tamburo v. Hyundai, No....more
Takeaway: Technology advances. Business processes evolve. Internet transactions become increasingly ubiquitous. Contract formation, however, remains an old-fashioned concept. An Internet consumer must, at a minimum, be...more
On April 3, 2023, the New Jersey Appellate Division in Jeffrey Santana v. SmileDirectClub, LLC, Docket A-2433-21, __ N.J. Super. __ ( App. Div. April 3, 2023), issued an opinion enforcing an arbitration provision found within...more
This week, the Court addresses the enforceability of an arbitration provision in Live Nation and Ticketmaster’s terms of use. OBERSTEIN V. LIVE NATION ENTERTAINMENT, INC. The Court holds that Live Nation and...more
Recently, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reexamined when use of a website can bind a consumer to hyperlinked “terms and conditions” containing an arbitration provision that the consumer never saw or read. Affirming the...more
On March 31, 2022, in Airbnb, Inc. v. Doe, the Florida Supreme Court aligned itself with nearly every federal circuit1 in holding that a “clickwrap” agreement that incorporates arbitration rules expressly delegating...more
Earlier this year, a number of individuals brought a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington against Washington-based company Wyze Labs, Inc (Wyze), which manufactures “smart” home...more
A recent federal court decision reminds employers that an employee’s electronic acceptance of an arbitration agreement may not, by itself, be enough to prove that the employee has agreed to arbitrate. In Shockley v....more
Last week, the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court's grant of a motion to compel individual arbitration in a case that "tests the outer limits of what constitutes a 'reasonably conspicuous' provision" in an online...more
For an arbitration agreement to be enforceable, the parties must have a reasonable opportunity to understand its terms. See Fagerstrom v. Amazon.com, Inc., 141 F. Supp. 3d 1070 (S.D. Cal. 2015). With this principle in mind,...more
On the eve of the holidays, gig businesses got a gift in the form of a ruling from a Massaschusetts federal court where a clickwrap agreement was held to be sufficient to bind a worker to an arbitration clause. The ruling in...more
In a big win for the tech industry and app developers, and for other companies seeking to enforce arbitration agreements through web-based interactions, last week the Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that the plaintiff in...more
How important is your businesses’ terms of service (TOS) agreement, usually presented to users of your business model through a process requiring them to click “I agree” before they can access your platform? A recent case...more
In recent years, courts have issued varying rulings as to whether online or mobile users adequately consented to user agreements or terms of service when completing an online purchase or registering for a service. In each...more
What makes an on-line arbitration agreement binding against a website user? In Meyer v. Uber Technologies, Inc., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 15497 (2d Cir. Aug. 17, 2017), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued a...more
This past summer, we wrote about two instances in which courts refused to enforce website terms presented in browsewrap agreements. As we noted, clickthrough agreements are generally more likely to be found to be enforced. ...more
In an important decision underscoring the challenges faced by retailers and others in enforcing online arbitration agreements with their customers, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has reversed a district...more
Perhaps overshadowed in the raging battle over the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's proposal to ban the use of class action waivers in consumer arbitration agreements involving consumer financial products or services is...more
On July 29, 2016, Judge Jed Rakoff of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued an opinion and order in Meyer v. Kalanick, denying Uber Technologies' motion to compel arbitration of a consumer's...more
In Nghiem v Dick’s Sporting Goods, Inc., No. 16-00097 (C.D. Cal. July 5, 2016), the Central District of California held browsewrap terms to be unenforceable because the hyperlink to the terms was “sandwiched” between two...more
Last week, the Eleventh Circuit refused to compel arbitration because the defendant financial institution failed to prove that its online deposit agreement actually included an arbitration clause. This decision reflects the...more
The recently released Carlton Fields 2016 Class Action Survey reports that class actions are up for the first time in four years. While data privacy class actions still make up a relatively small portion of class action...more