Plaintiff airline ticket buyer sued Expedia in court for, among other things, fraud, claiming that he was entitled to a refund of the price of his ticket because he had to cancel for medical reasons. Expedia moved to compel arbitration. The court granted the motion.
It found that plaintiff manifested his clear agreement to the arbitration clause in Expedia’s online terms and conditions when he selected the “complete booking” button on the “Review and book your trip” screen during his ticket purchase process.
It also found that each of plaintiff’s claims were encompassed by the arbitration agreement found in the online terms. The arbitration agreement entered into by the parties stated that “[a]ny and all Claims will be resolved by binding arbitration.” There was no apparent exception for fraud or contract claims, and plaintiff did not argue that any exception existed.
Van Den Heuvel v. Expedia Travel, 2017 WL 5133270 (E.D. Cal., November 6, 2017
About the Author: Evan Brown is a Chicago technology and intellectual property attorney. Call Evan at (630) 362-7237, send email to ebrown [at] internetcases.com, or follow him on Twitter @internetcases. Read Evan’s other blog, UDRP Tracker, for information about domain name disputes.