When John and Georgia McGinty had ordered a car from the transport service Uber one Sunday in 2022, the driver drove through a red light, and the vehicle was hit on the side by a crossing car.
The two became seriously injured, and wanted to sue Uber for the accident afterwards. If one wins a jury trial in the USA in such cases, the damages can become dizzyingly high.
But now an appellate court has established that the couple had waived their right to take the case to court – because their daughter had clicked the box with terms of use when she ordered food from the service Uber Eats. The daughter was a minor, but the court says that it cannot be established that she did not have her mother's help when she ordered.
The current terms of use are common for Uber's passenger transport and food deliveries, and imply that the customer accepts that any disputes are resolved in arbitration. Such a procedure is considered in the USA to give dissatisfied customers much worse prospects of putting pressure on large corporations.
