Link: Johnson v. UBER TECHNOLOGIES, INC., Case No. 16 C 5468 (N.D. Ill., Sept. 20, 2018).
Plaintiff sued on the basis that he installed the Uber app once, never used it, uninstalled it, then received an unsolicited text message asking him if he wanted to drive for Uber. Judge John Z. Lee found that despite Plaintiff’s arguments to the contrary, his TCPA claim was subject to the arbitration agreement found within Uber’s click-wrap terms of service that were available via hyperlink when the Plaintiff installed the app on his phone.
[T]he Uber app contained a clear and conspicuous statement that, by creating an Uber account, a user agreed to the Terms of Service & Privacy Policy and prompted the user to click the hyperlink by displaying it prominently in an outlined box.
Plaintiff also argued that his TCPA action is not within the scope of the clause. The court rejected this:
Undeterred, Johnson further argues that, even if he did enter into an arbitration agreement, his TCPA claim does not fall within its scope. “Once it is clear, however, that the parties have a contract that provides for arbitration of some issues between them, any doubt concerning the scope of the arbitration clause is resolved in favor of arbitration as a matter of federal law.” Gore v. Alltel Commc’ns, LLC, 666 F.3d 1027, 1032 (7th Cir. 2012). “To this end, a court may not deny a party’s request to arbitrate an issue `unless it may be said with positive assurance that the arbitration clause is not susceptible of an interpretation that covers the asserted dispute.'” Kiefer Specialty Flooring, Inc. v. Tarkett, Inc., 174 F.3d 907, 909 (7th Cir. 1999).