PLAINTIFF WAS DEEMED TO HAVE READ THE INFORMATION WHICH WAS HYPERLINKED; THEREFORE PLAINTIFF WAS DEEMED TO HAVE AGREED TO ARBITRATION (FIRST DEPT).
The First Department, reversing Supreme Court, determined plaintiff agreed to arbitrate based upon the hyperlinks in the document plaintiff reviewed:
Uber [defendant] sustained its burden of demonstrating that the parties had an explicit and unequivocal agreement to arbitrate. … [P]laintiff had agreed to be bound by the arbitration agreement when he affirmatively indicated and confirmed, by taking two separate actions, that he had reviewed and agreed to Uber’s updated terms of use, which were overtly hyperlinked as part of the pop-up screen and sufficient to form a binding contract … .
… [P]laintiff was on inquiry notice of the updated Terms of Use that required any disputes between the parties to be resolved by arbitration. Although a clickwrap agreement’s terms and conditions must be clear and conspicuous, they need not all be simultaneously and immediately visible; the terms may be binding and enforceable even if they are only accessible through a hyperlink … . The keys to enforceability are a reasonable indication of the existence of the additional terms and the user’s being required to manifest assent to them … . Brooks v Lang Yang, 2023 NY Slip Op 02610, First Dept 5-15-23
Practice Point: Here the plaintiff was deemed to have read information which was hyperlinked and therefore was deemed to have agreed to arbitrate.