Southwest Airlines Co. v. BoardFirst, LLC, No. 06-0891 (N.D. Tex. September 12, 2007)
Southwest Airlines does not have differentiated seating — one cannot get a better seat by paying more. Passengers are allowed to board based on a group classification they are assigned on a first come, first served basis. Passengers in the “A” group get to board first, while passengers in the “C” group go last. One can check in to be assigned to a group up to 24 hours before a flight by visiting Southwest’s Web site.
Boardfirst.com was a web-based company that Southwest passengers could pay to log in for them in hopes of obtaining “A” group passes. Southwest objected to this practice, however, and filed suit in a Texas federal court against Boardfirst alleging violation of the Southwest Web site’s terms of service. Southwest then moved for summary judgment on its breach of contract claim, and the court granted the motion.
The first issue before the court was whether the “browsewrap” terms of service on the Southwest Web site, visible upon clicking a hyperlink at the bottom of the home page, constituted a valid contract between Southwest and BoardFirst. Those terms of service, among other things, prohibited using the Southwest site for anything other than personal, non-commercial purposes.
The court held that a valid contract existed. Finding that the situation resembled the one in the case of Register.com v. Verio, Inc., 356 F.3d 393 (2d Cir. 2004), the court held that the evidence showed BoardFirst had actual knowledge of the terms, which expressly prohibited use of the site for commercial purposes.
Next the court determined that BoardFirst had breached the terms of service by using the site for commercial purposes. It rejected BoardFirst’s argument that BoardFirst was an agent of the ticket purchasers and therefore not a prohibited third party accessing the site. The court also rejected BoardFirst’s argument that prohibiting “commercial” use of the website would mean that every access of the site — ostensibly resulting in Southwest’s commercial advantage — would constitute a breach of the terms of service.