On April 19, 2022, Mark Geller took an Uber to Chicago Midway Airport. The driver lost control on southbound I-55 at Throop Street around 8 p.m. and both the driver and rider died.
Geller’s wife sued Uber. Whether or not Uber was negligent here isn’t the interesting question. It’s whether or not the deceased man’s family even gets to sue.
- Uber argues that the lawsuit shouldn’t go forward in court, and that Geller’s wife should be forced into binding arbitration because she is an Uber user and she agreed to arbitration under her account.
- And, they say, a court doesn’t even get to review whether arbitration is appropriate because the arbitration agreement delegates that to the arbitrator.
- A trial court sent some claims to arbitration under the rider’s agreement with Uber, but not Wrongful Death Act claims that belong to the wife – because those claims do not arise from the wife’s own use of Uber. But the First District disagreed and said her agreement required an arbitrator, not a court, to decide whether she has to arbitrate.
Chicago Midway Airport
On May 19, the Illinois Supreme Court heard oral argument on this issue.
Uber’s terms had a delegation clause that said an arbitrator gets to decide whether the arbitration agreement applies. They argue that the surviving spouse had an Uber account, she accepted Uber’s terms, and it required arbitrating all claims against Uber.
But the spouse says her personal Uber account had nothing to do with the fatal ride. She’s not suing as a Uber user. And Uber is using generic app terms as an end-run around wrongful death laws.
She argued that Uber did not prove she personally reviewed or meaningfully accepted the terms, that users did not even have to scroll through the terms, and the app didn’t require any initializing of them or flagging the arbitration portion in the dense text. There was no real ability to negotiate or defer while continuing to use the app. The First District rejected those arguments and found the adhesion contract fully enforceable.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports Uber in this case because they want courts enforcing online arbitration agreements.
It makes sense for companies to want to limit costly litigation. But it seems like if we’re enforcing adhesion contracts, there needs to be some bounds for them. Uber arguing that because you’ve ever used your app you cannot sue them in court for things unrelated to your own use, which you probably didn’t even know, seems like a step too far. It shields them from liability far beyond their actual transactions between company and customer.
Agree with you. Unless she was using her app to book hers husband’s travel, it should have zero applicability.