US couple blocked from suing Uber after accident says daughter agreed to Uber Eats terms | New Jersey

A New Jersey couple seriously injured when their Uber driver ran a red light and collided with another car has lost their attempt to sue the company in court.

John McGinty and Georgia McGinty claim Uber is enforcing an arbitration agreement after their daughter clicked accept when presented with updated terms and conditions while ordering food through her Uber Eats account mother.

Uber claims that Georgia McGintys' account on its app received a full-screen pop-up multiple times, requiring the user to agree to the updated terms of service before accessing its service.

This comes amid increased scrutiny around the conditions of major tech platforms. This summer, Disney faced backlash after its lawyers initially argued that terms and conditions agreed to by a widower on the Disney+ streaming service protected the company from a wrongful death lawsuit he had filed following his wife's death after eating at a Disney World restaurant.

Last month, a New Jersey appeals court sided with Uber against the McGintys, allowing the ride-hailing and delivery company to enforce an arbitration agreement requiring the couple to arbitrate their claims for personal injury, rather than pleading them in court.

Georgia and John McGinty. Photography: Courtesy of Georgia and John McGinty

The court's opinion, issued on September 20, said the arbitration clause in Uber's terms and conditions was valid and enforceable, despite the couple's claims that it was their daughter who agreed to the terms. usage updates months before their accident. Uber claims that Georgia McGinty had also previously agreed to the terms.

John McGinty and Georgia McGinty were seriously injured in March 2022, according to court documents, suffering broken bones and other physical injuries, as well as psychological and financial damages. About a year later, the couple filed a lawsuit against Uber.

In a statement to the Guardian, the McGintys said they were surprised and heartbroken by the appeal court's decision, which they said had exacerbated the pain and suffering they had experienced since the collision.

The couple added that they were horrified that a large company like Uber could avoid being sued in court by aggrieved consumers because of contractual language buried in a dozen-page user agreement regarding services unrelated to the one that caused the harm to consumers. .

They said: Dozens of pages on an iPhone screen during a food delivery order make it difficult for anyone to understand what rights they are potentially giving up or how serious the consequences could be.

Uber responded to the couple's complaint by attempting to force arbitration and dismiss the case, citing Georgia McGinty's agreement to Uber's terms and conditions several months before the accident, which included an arbitration clause .

The court ruling, issued last week, states that Uber updated its terms of service in December 2021 and that Georgia McGinty, who has used Uber since 2015 for Uber rides and Uber Eats, was presented with a click-through agreement on its Uber app in January 2022, with the updated terms it must agree to, including the arbitration clause.

Uber records show that a person using Georgia McGintys' account that day checked boxes indicating that she had reviewed and agreed to the updated terms, that she was at least 18 years old and that she had clicked on confirm.

Lawyers representing the McGintys, however, say the couple does not remember seeing the click box on the date in question, January 8, and assume that their daughter, who was a minor at the time, must have clicked on it when she was monitoring a food delivery from Uber Eats. that evening, while the parents were making preparations for a ski trip.

The McGintys remember their daughter asking if they could order food and saying their daughter did so with or without Georgia McGinty's help. She then monitored the progress of the deliveries on her mother's phone, which is when Uber indicates that checkbox consent was given.

While Uber's motion to compel arbitration was initially denied by a lower New Jersey court last year, Uber appealed that decision and argued both that Georgia McGinty could not escape the deal by claiming that it was actually her daughter who agreed to the updated terms, and that Georgia McGinty account had previously agreed to terms that also included an arbitration clause.

The McGintys' lawyers said in court documents that they were not given the opportunity to respond to this latest allegation.

After several months of legal wrangling, the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court decided to overturn the lower courts' decision. His ruling declared that the agreement entered into by Georgia or her minor daughter, while using her cell phone, was valid and enforceable.

The court added that there was no ambiguity about the arbitration when Georgia McGinty agreed to Uber's terms. The arbitration agreement is valid and delegates the preliminary question of the scope of arbitration to the arbitrator, according to the order.

Asked for comment, an Uber spokesperson referred the Guardian to the decision itself and said the court found that on several occasions the plaintiff herself, not her teenage daughter, had agreed to the Uber Terms of Service, including the Arbitration Agreement.

More than once, a full-screen pop-up message informed the user about updates to the terms of service and that these updated terms required the user to accept them before they could use the app, added the spokesperson.

Lawyers representing the McGintys said this is another arbitration clause that appears to have infinite scope and an example of the erosion of consumer protections and rights.

They are reviewing the decision and planning their next steps, and should likely petition the New Jersey Supreme Court.

McGintys' dispute with Uber is the latest case to shine a light on the terms of use of leading technology platforms.

After several days and countless news reports about Disney's attempt to use Disney+ terms to protect itself from a Disney World-related lawsuit, the Hollywood giant then reversed course and dropped the suit, allowing the case to proceed to proceed in court rather than through arbitration.

With online products like Uber on cell phones and apps, companies can fit a 50-page terms document into a small box, said Richard Staggard, a personal injury attorney. Many people click accept without reading the terms and don't know what they're agreeing to, he noted, and most people don't have time to read lengthy documents, especially if they want to use the product as quickly as possible.

David Horton, a law professor at the University of California Law School who specializes in arbitration, said the case illustrates how difficult it is for ordinary people to avoid giving up their right to take legal action in court.

These types of fine-print arbitration clauses are widespread, studies show, and Horton said more companies are using broad arbitration clauses in their user agreements.

He called these types of agreements infinite arbitration clauses.

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