Second Circuit Reverses Judge Rakoff in Uber Arbitration Decision
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In a highly-anticipated decision (at least for those in the arbitration world), the Second Circuit yesterday vacated the district court’s opinion in Meyer v. Kalanick, 200 F. Supp.3d 408 (S.D.N.Y. 2016), which was authored by the well-known Judge Jed Rakoff. The Second Circuit, in Meyer v. Uber Technologies, 2017 WL 3526682 (Aug. 17, 2017), found that plaintiffs, a putative class of Uber riders asserting price-fixing claims against Uber and its former CEO Travis Kalanick, received sufficient notice of an arbitration clause when they downloaded the Uber App.
The Court of Appeals noted that a user, when downloading the app and setting up an Uber account, must click through a payment page containing the text: “By creating an Uber account, you agree to the TERMS OF SERVICE & PRIVACY POLICY.” (The Terms of Service are hyperlinked to the actual terms of the contract.) {Read the full opinion for the details of the download process and the various screens a user would have to click through to establish an Uber account.}
The Second Circuit, applying California law, found that plaintiffs, by downloading the App and clicking through the payment screen, received “reasonably conspicuous notice of the existence of contract terms” and the act of downloading and opening an account was “unambiguous manifestation of assent to those terms” such that a valid contract was formed.
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