A New Jersey appeals court has ruled that a couple that suffered life-altering injuries in a car accident while taking an Uber cannot sue the tech giant because they agreed to binding arbitration in Uber’s terms of service. The couple is pushing back, claiming that their daughter, who is under 18, was the one who agreed to the terms of service while ordering on Uber Eats.
Georgia and John McGinty were sitting in the rear passenger seats of an Uber when their driver ran through a red light and T-boned another vehicle on March 31, 2022. The collision left Georgia with fractures to her neck, back and ribs and other traumatic injuries to her pelvic floor and abdominal wall, court documents show. Her husband John sustained a fractured sternum and severe fractures to his left arm and wrist.
Both required numerous surgeries and invasive procedures to treat the injuries. Georgia, a divorce lawyer, was left unable to work for more than a year and John still suffers diminished use and sensation in his left wrist.
The couple sued Uber for damages for the “serious physical, psychological and financial” harm they incurred as a result of the accident, the court filing reads. Six months after the lawsuit was initiated, Uber filed a motion to dismiss the complaint and compel arbitration, outside of a court of law.
“Uber maintained that when Georgia signed up for an Uber account, she agreed to Uber’s Terms of Use, including the Arbitration Agreement. Therefore, she agreed to arbitrate any disputes with Uber arising out of her use of Uber’s services,” the filing reads.
Uber claims that Georgia, whose account was used to call the ill-fated Uber, agreed to arbitration two times: in April 2021 and January 2022. Georgia allegedly clicked a checkbox on those occasions confirming her acceptance of Uber’s terms of use.
In April, the terms included a line that read: “You acknowledge and agree that you and Uber are each waiving the right to a trial by jury.” Georgia does not dispute that she agreed to these terms, the court filing states.
In January, the terms stated that disputes including auto accidents resulting in personal injury “will be settled by binding individual arbitration between you and Uber, and not in a court of law.” Georgia, or someone using Georgia’s account, allegedly clicked a checkbox agreeing to these terms as well as a checkbox confirming they were over the age of 18.
The new terms also explicitly stated they superseded the earlier terms that Georgia agreed to in April.
Georgia attests she never agreed to the updated terms, and that her daughter, using her phone, agreed to the contract while ordering food on Uber Eats, not the Uber app itself. Georgia said she and her husband John were busy packing for a ski trip at the time, so their daughter took care of ordering food for them.
Their daughter is under 18, adding an extra layer of complexity to the case.
When Georgia and John first took Uber to court, the judge ruled in favour of the couple, finding that the updated terms of use were unenforceable because the language was too vague. The updated terms didn’t include words like “jury” and “trial” like the older terms did.
The lower court decided that Uber’s terms “fail(ed) to clearly and unambiguously inform plaintiff of her waiver of the right to pursue her claims in a judicial forum.”
Uber appealed the decision and an appellate court decided that the terms of use are, indeed, enforceable. The judges, citing previous precedents, ruled that there are no “magic words” that Uber needed to use in order to making the arbitration clause binding and that the clause was clear enough.
The judges also decided that, even if Georgia’s daughter was the one who agreed to the updated terms, that it still represented a valid contract between Georgia and Uber.
“Georgia certified that her daughter was ‘capable,’ would frequently order food, and she and John were preoccupied with packing, which supports the inference that the daughter acted knowingly on Georgia’s behalf,” the decision reads. “In summary, the Arbitration Agreement is valid.”
The court ruled that an arbitrator can decide if Georgia’s daughter’s young age is a valid defence.
The couple’s lawyer, Mike Shapiro, says the McGintys plan to continue their case and may potentially escalate the matter to the New Jersey Supreme Court. Shapiro told NPR that he sees Uber’s terms of use as overly broad.
“It’s amazing to me the reach that these things are going to go to,” he said. “If you shop at a store and you’re a member of their loyalty program, you’re gonna be agreeing to arbitration. If you’re on the street and you’re hit by an Uber, even though you’re not currently in it, but you’re an existing Uber customer, is that … the extent of the reach that they want to have their agreement hit?”
Shapiro also claims that Uber did not provide all the discovery materials that the couple’s legal team asked for, including technical data about how it collects and stores checkbox data, which allegedly showed Georgia’s acceptance of the terms of use.
The Uber case appears eerily similar to a recent case involving Disney.
A widower sued Disney earlier this year after his wife, Dr. Kanokporn Tangsuan, ate a meal at Disney World and died from an allergic reaction. The staff had guaranteed them that the meal was allergen-free.
Lawyers for Disney argued that Dr. Tangsuan’s husband could not pursue a court hearing because he had signed up for a free trial of Disney+, four years before his wife’s death, that included a clause prohibiting signees from pursuing class-action lawsuits or jury trials against Disney.
After considerable outcry, Disney announced it was waiving its right to arbitration so the case could move forward in court.