District Judge Denies Motion to Compel Arbitration, Rules Arbitration Agreement Contained in Nested Hyperlink Invalid

Courts Arbitration Litigation

On July 21, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California denied a Defendant’s motion to compel arbitration, finding that the Plaintiff had not agreed to arbitrate where the Defendant had presented the arbitration agreement electronically to the Plaintiff through a multi-layered set of hyperlinks. See McGhee v. North American Bancard, LLC, 17-CV-0586-AJB-KSC, 2017 WL 3118799 (S.D. Cal. Jul. 21, 2017). The dispute revolved around an agreement for the use of a credit card reader provided by the Defendant. The terms and conditions for this service were presented to the Plaintiff electronically via a hyperlink. The hyperlink was placed next to a checkbox and button labeled with the phrase “I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions.” But the Terms and Conditions document accessible through that hyperlink did not contain the arbitration agreement. Instead, the arbitration agreement was only accessible by clicking on a second hyperlink contained in the first document. Additionally, the Terms and Conditions document accessible through the first-level hyperlink conflicted with the nested arbitration agreement because the Terms and Conditions document included a forum selection clause designating state and federal courts of Georgia. On these facts, the court found that Plaintiff’s consent applied only to the Terms and Conditions document immediately behind the first hyperlink, and did not apply to the arbitration agreement accessible through the nested hyperlink.