By Lawrence A. Cunningham. Originally published at ValueWalk.
Contract Law And Its Majesty Over Digital Deals
Contract Law
A few months later, however, Berkson discovered that Gogo was billing his AmEx card every month—as if he had subscribed—and when he requested a refund, Gogo refused. While AmEx reversed the charges as a customer courtesy, in 2014 Berkson nevertheless banded together with other aggrieved Gogo customers to file a federal class action lawsuit for additional damages. Gogo moved to dismiss the case by citing yet another surprising term on its web site, one providing that all disputes go to arbitration, not litigation.
This case is one of scores of disputes arising from electronic contracts formed on the internet, mostly between consumers and merchants. While billions of dollars change hands amid trillions of Internet transactions, most raising no issue, the novelty, dynamism, and ingenuity surrounding e-commerce and technology produces disagreements about how offers to contract are made, how they may be accepted, and what terms they contain. And while there is ongoing contention about how electronic contracting is or should proceed, the setting vividly shows the remarkable durability and capaciousness of venerable contract doctrine.
Most fundamentally, mutual manifestation of assent is the touchstone of contract formation and an essential element. When there is clearly an offeror and clearly an offeree, then the acceptance of the offer must be unequivocal. Such principles signify that asset and acceptance on line must stimulate a degree of intentionality that many website formation devices lack.
Next, it is common in contemporary commerce to offer and form contracts without negotiation—standard terms on take-it-or-leave bases which are generally referred to as adhesion contracts. In order for traditional principles of assent and acceptance to work, law must assure that offerees at least have an opportunity to review terms if not negotiate them.
Finally, when assent is largely passive, as with electronic adhesion contracts, it becomes more important to probe whether the offeree had notice of the term at issue. Actual notice certainly suffices but inquiry notice would suffice too—that is the offeree need not know the specifics of the term but be on notice to inquiry about it.
Carnival Cruise
A prominent pre-internet illustration is Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. v. Shute, whre the U.S. Supreme Court held that the terms of adhesion contracts are “subject to judicial scrutiny for fundamental fairness”. In Carnival Cruise, vacationers bought cruise tickets through a travel agent it later received by mail. A legend on the front read, in bold type and all capital letters: “SUBJECT TO CONDITIONS OF CONTRACT ON LAST PAGES IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ CONTRACT ON LAST PAGES 1, 2, 3.”
The passenger was injured on the cruise due to alleged carrier negligence and sued in Washington state court. The carrier, citing a clause in the contract selecting Florida courts for any such suits, moved to dismiss the case. While the passenger said the clause was unenforceable because not freely bargained for.
The Supreme Court thought that that absence of bargaining was irrelevant to the clause’s validity. It is unreasonable to expect bargaining over such terms, either from the offeror’s or offeree’s perspective. The issue, rather, was whether the clause was reasonable and fair. Nothing about the cruise line’s choice of Florida suggested unfairness or absence of good reason; to the contrary, its headquarters and commonly used ports are in Florida. Nor did it appear that the line exacted the passenger’s assent by fraud or overreaching. Finally, and of greatest relevance to the Gogo analysis, the Court stressed that the passenger received notice of the clause and therefore could have rejected the offer.
These basic principles of general contract law apply whether one is addressing exchanges made in-person, by mail, or on-line—and to all the various devices different web sites use—whether offers invite acceptance only after scrolling through, by clicking “I agree” or merely by browsing or signing-in.
Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)
A recent case against Facebook evokes that of Carnival Cruise. In Fteja v. Facebook, Inc., a user charged emotional distress and reputational damage when Facebook disabled his account and sued in New York. Facebook, citing its terms of use that called for litigating in California, moved to transfer the case. The user countered that he not accepted the terms. It was both similar to and different from Carnival Cruise.
On Facebook’s web site, users are asked to provide fields of information before clicking sign-up, whereupon a security check intervenes, after which it prompts another “sign-up,” this one announcing that by clicking “you are indicating that
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