A New Jersey appellate court has ruled that a couple who suffered life-changing injuries in a car accident while riding for Uber cannot sue the tech giant because they agreed to binding arbitration in Uber’s terms of service. But the couple disputes this, claiming that it was their daughter, who is under 18, who agreed to the terms of service while ordering on Uber Eats.
Georgia and John McGinty were sitting in the back passenger seats of an Uber when their driver ran a red light and crashed another car on March 31, 2022. The collision left Georgia with fractures to her neck, back, ribs and other trauma. Injuries to the pelvic floor and abdominal wall, Court documents show. Her husband, John, suffered a broken sternum and severe fractures to his left arm and wrist.
Both require numerous surgeries and invasive procedures to treat the injuries. Georgia, a divorce attorney, was left unable to work for more than a year, and John still suffers from poor use and sensation in his left wrist.
The couple filed a lawsuit against Uber for damages for the “serious physical, psychological, and financial” damage they suffered as a result of the accident, the court filing said. Six months after the lawsuit began, Uber filed a motion to dismiss the complaint and force arbitration, outside of a court of law.
“Uber confirmed that when Georgia signed up for an Uber account, it agreed to Uber’s terms of use, including the arbitration agreement. Therefore, it agreed to arbitrate any disputes with Uber arising from its use of Uber’s services.
Uber claims that Georgia, whose account was used to contact the ill-fated Uber, agreed to arbitration twice: in April 2021 and January 2022. Georgia allegedly clicked a checkbox on those occasions to confirm its 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 jury trial.” Georgia does not dispute its agreement to those terms, the court filing states.
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In January, the terms stated that disputes including car accidents resulting in personal injury “will be settled by binding, individual arbitration between you and Uber, rather than in a court of law.” Georgia, or anyone using the Georgia account, allegedly clicked a checkbox to agree to these terms as well as a checkbox confirming they were over 18 years of age.
The new terms also explicitly state that they replace the previous terms agreed to by Georgia in April.
Georgia testifies that 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 preparing for a ski trip at the time, so their daughter took care of ordering food for them.
Their daughter is under 18, which adds an extra layer of complexity to the case.
When Georgia and John first sued Uber, a judge ruled in favor of the couple, finding the updated terms of use unenforceable because the language was too vague. The updated terminology did not include words like “jury” and “trial” as the older terms did.
The lower court determined that Uber’s terms “failed to clearly and unambiguously inform Plaintiff that she waived the right to pursue her claims in a judicial forum.”
Uber appealed the decision and the Court of Appeal decided that the terms of use were indeed enforceable. The judges ruled, citing previous case law, that there were no “magic words” Uber had to use to make the arbitration clause binding and that the clause was clear enough.
The justices also decided that even if it was Georgia’s daughter who agreed to the updated terms, they still represented a valid contract between Georgia and Uber.
“Georgia testified that her daughter was able to order food more often than not, and she and John were busy packing, which supports the conclusion that the daughter knowingly acted on behalf of Georgia,” the decision said. “The bottom line is that the arbitration agreement is valid.”
The court ruled that the arbitrator could decide whether Georgia’s daughter’s young age was a valid defense.
The couple’s attorney, Mike Shapiro, said the McGinty family plans to pursue their case and may take the matter to the New Jersey Supreme Court. Shapiro told NPR He finds Uber’s terms of use too broad.
“It’s amazing to me how far these things will go,” he said. “If you’re shopping at a store and you’re a member of their loyalty program, you’re agreeing to arbitration. If you’re on the street and you get hit by an Uber, even though you’re not currently in it, but you’re an existing Uber customer, is that… the reach that Want to get their approval for his hits?
Shapiro also alleges that Uber did not provide all of the discovery materials requested by the couple’s legal team, including technical data about how it collected and stored checkbox data, which allegedly showed Georgia’s acceptance of the terms of use.
The Uber case sounds eerily similar to the recent case involving Disney.
A widower filed a lawsuit against Disney earlier this year after his wife, Dr. Kanokporn Tangsuan, ate a meal at Disney World and died from an allergic reaction. The staff assured them that the meal was allergen-free.
Disney’s lawyers argued that Dr. Tangsuan’s husband was unable to proceed with a court hearing because he signed up for a free trial of Disney+, four years before his wife’s death, which included a clause prohibiting the signatories from pursuing class actions or jury trials against Disney.
After significant protests, Disney announced it was waiving its right to arbitration so the case could move forward in court.
&Copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
