US couple blocked from suing Uber after crash say daughter agreed to Uber Eats terms

A New Jersey couple seriously injured when their Uber driver ran a red light and collided with another car has lost a bid to take legal action against the company in court.

John McGinty and Georgia McGinty argue Uber is enforcing an arbitration agreement after their daughter clicked "agree" when presented with updated terms and conditions while ordering food via her mom's Uber Eats account.

Uber says that Georgia McGinty's account on its app received a "full-screen pop-up" on several occasions, which required the user to accept updated terms of use before accessing its service.

It comes amid heightened scrutiny around the terms of leading tech platforms. This summer Disney faced a backlash after its attorneys initially argued the terms and conditions a widower agreed to on the Disney+ streaming service protected the company from a wrongful death lawsuit he brought over his wife's death after eating at a Disney World restaurant.

Last month, a New Jersey court of appeals sided with Uber against the McGintys, allowing the ride-hailing and delivery company to enforce an arbitration agreement requiring the couple to arbitrate their personal injury claims, rather than litigating them in court.

The court's opinion , issued on 20 September, stated that the arbitration provision contained in Uber's terms and conditions was "valid and enforceable", despite the couple's claims that it was their daughter who clicked agree to the updated terms of use months before their accident. Uber says Georgia McGinty had also previously agreed to the terms.

John McGinty and Georgia McGinty were seriously injured in March 2022, according to court documents, suffering fractures and other physical injuries, as well as psychological, and financial damages. About a year later, the couple filed a complaint against Uber.

In a statement to the Guardian, the McGintys said they were "surprised and heartbroken" by the appellate court's ruling, which they said had "exacerbated the pain and suffering" they had experienced since the collision.

The couple added that they were "horrified" that a large corporation like Uber could "avoid being sued in a court of law by injured consumers because of contractual language buried in a dozen-page-long user agreement concerning services unrelated to the one that caused the consumers' injuries."

They said: "Dozens of pages on an iPhone screen during a food delivery order make it impossible that anyone could understand what rights they were potentially waiving or how drastic the consequences could be."

Uber responded to the couple's complaint by attempting to enforce arbitration and dismiss the case, citing Georgia McGinty's agreement to Uber's terms and conditions several months before the accident, which included an arbitration clause.

The court ruling, issued last week, states that Uber updated its terms of use in December 2021, and that Georgia McGinty – who has used Uber since 2015 for both Uber rides and Uber Eats – was presented with a "click-wrap" agreement on her Uber app in January 2022, with the updated terms for her to agree to, including the arbitration clause.

Uber's records show that someone using Georgia McGinty's account checked boxes that day – which indicated that she had reviewed and agreed to the updated terms, was at least 18 years old – and clicked "confirm".

Attorneys representing the McGintys claim that the couple does not recall seeing the "click box" on the date in question, 8 January, however – and surmise their daughter, who was a minor at the time, must have clicked it while monitoring a food delivery from Uber Eats that evening, as the parents packed for a ski trip.

The McGintys remember their daughter asking if they could order food and say their daughter – either with or without the assistance of Georgia McGinty – did so. She then monitored the delivery's progress on her mother's phone, which is when Uber says the checkbox consent was given.

While Uber's motion to compel arbitration was initially denied by a lower court in New Jersey last year, Uber appealed that ruling and argued both that Georgia McGinty could not escape the agreement by claiming it was actually her daughter who agreed toupdated terms, and that Georgia McGinty's account had previously agreed to terms which also included an arbitration clause.

Attorneys for the McGintys said in court documents that they were notgiven an opportunity to respond to the latter allegation.

After many months of legal wrangling, the New Jersey superior court appellate division decided to reverse the lower court's decision. Its ruling stated that the agreement, which "Georgia or her minor daughter, while using her cell phone, agreed to" was "valid and enforceable".

The court added that there was "no ambiguity" on arbitration when Georgia McGinty agreed Uber's terms. "The Arbitration Agreement is valid and delegates the threshold question of the scope of the arbitration to the arbitrator," according to the order.

Asked for comment, a spokesperson for Uber referred the Guardian to the ruling itself, and stated that the court concluded that "on multiple occasions the plaintiff herself – not her teenage daughter – agreed to Uber's terms of use, including the arbitration agreement".

"More than once, a full-screen pop-up message notified the user of updates to the Terms of Use and that these updated terms required the user to agree to them before the user could proceed to use the app," the spokesperson added.

Attorneys representing the McGintys said this was "yet another arbitration clause that looks to have an infinite reach" – and an example of "the erosion of consumer protections and rights".

They are reviewing the decision and planning their next steps, and are likely to petition the New Jersey supreme court.

The McGintys' dispute with Uber is the latest case to shine a light on the terms of using prominent tech platforms.

After several days and countless news stories surrounding Disney's bid to use Disney+ terms to shield itself from a lawsuit tied to Disney World,, the Hollywood giant later backtracked and dropped the legal claim, allowing the matter to proceed in court instead of through arbitration.

With online products such as Uber on cellphones and apps, companies can "squeeze a 50-page conditions document into a little box", a personal injury lawyer, Richard Staggard, said. Many people click "accept" without reading the terms and are unaware of what they are agreeing to, he noted, and most people don't have time to read lengthy documents, especially if they want to use the product as soon as possible.

David Horton, a law professor at the University of California School of Law specializing in arbitration, said that this case "illustrates how hard it is for everyday people to avoid surrendering their right to file lawsuits in court".

These kinds of fine-print arbitration clauses are widespread, according to studies, and Horton said more and more companies are using broad arbitration clauses in their user agreements.