Uber Guests Aren’t Bound By Uber’s TOS–Walker v. Uber

A section from my Internet Law casebook’s chapter on online contracts is titled: “Uber’s TOS Formation Madness. An entire chapter could be dedicated solely to Uber’s TOS dramas!” Here’s another dramatic entry in the annals of Uber’s TOS history.

The opinion summarizes:

As part of its ubiquitous ride-hailing service, Uber permits a user to order “guest rides” for third parties remotely. Guest riders can travel unaccompanied by the user and need never have downloaded Uber’s app orcreated an account themselves. This case concerns what legal obligations a guest rider owes to Uber by virtue of using the service.

In this case, Cheryl ordered an Uber ride for her husband Carroll. Carroll suffered significant personal injuries on the ride. Uber sought to direct Carroll’s claims to arbitration. The court says Carroll never agreed to Uber’s TOS, so no arbitration.

The court summarizes its legal conclusion:

Uber relies on its having sent Carroll a text message before the guest ride that included a hyperlink to the Terms and stated that taking the ride would manifest his assent to them. But Uber cannot show that Carroll ever saw its unsolicited message, and contract law imposes no duty to read a contract that one does not know exists. Uber alternatively submits that Carroll could be separately bound to arbitrate his claims under Cheryl’s contract with Uber. Carroll does not seek to enforce his wife’s contract, however, and he had no more notice of its terms when he took the guest ride.

Why Didn’t the Text Message Work?

Uber texted Carroll:

Your Uber from Cheryl is arriving in 10 minutes. \n \nBy taking this trip, you agree to the Uber Terms of Use & Privacy Policy: t.uber.com/lgl. \n n\Track here/nhttps://trip.uber.com/Wu8vBbIYEf3A \n\nReply STOP to opt out from SMS notifications.

The court says that Carroll did not have inquiry notice:

Under the design of Uber’s guest-rider system, it never required Carroll to click on an “I accept” button or its equivalent, or to otherwise expressly confirm his acceptance of the Terms. Nor was Carroll presented with a website- or app-based interface that contained a link to the Terms and stated that taking the ride would manifest his assent to them. Instead, Uber simply sent Carroll a text message with that information and anticipated he would see it before taking the ride. But individuals are not on inquiry notice when they must “ferret out hyperlinks”—even when they are already using the apps or webpages on which the links appear….In focusing on the layout and language of the text message it sent Carroll, Uber skips over a critical difference between this case and the mine run of internet-contracting cases: Carroll never saw the message, so it is irrelevant whether he would have been on inquiry notice from the message had he seen it.

Uber suggested that Carroll surely saw its text. The court responds:

The system Uber designed did not require guest riders to read the text messages Uber sent them before using the service. Nor did its system as a practical matter require guest riders to open the messages to obtain information about their rides…

we disagree that an objectively reasonable person in Carroll’s position necessarily would have read the text message from Uber before taking the guest ride….At least until they enter the vehicle, the guest rider’s relationship to Uber’s service is entirely passive; they need never have interacted with the company in any way. In that context, it is far from apparent that a reasonable person would expect to receive an unsolicited text message calling for them to examine voluminous contract terms in the short window before their ride arrives. And although Carroll’s practice of never reading text messages may be idiosyncratic, there is no legal duty to perpetually monitor one’s phone for incoming messages that may contain contract terms interspersed with other text.

“Never reading text messages” sounds like aspirational goals for many of us.

Other Ways of Binding Carroll

Carroll isn’t a third-party beneficiary of Cheryl’s TOS with Uber. “Carroll is not seeking to enforce Cheryl’s contract with Uber, nor did he otherwise consent to be bound by its terms….if Carroll was an intended third-party beneficiary of the contract between Cheryl and Uber, that would simply mean he could sue Uber to enforce its obligations to Cheryl. That is a far cry from saying he incurred his own obligations to Uber from a contract to which he was not a party.”

Also, “Even assuming the guest ride counts as a direct benefit that Carroll accepted under Cheryl’s contract with Uber, Uber’s [equitable estoppel] argument still fails. We have explained that Carroll lacked actual or constructive notice of the terms on which that benefit was being offered, so he did not “knowingly” accept any benefit.”

What Could Uber Do Differently?

In my Internet Law course, I describe a phenomenon of TOS formation “leaks,” where people can reach their desired goal without going through the otherwise mandatory TOS formation process. Uber guests are an example of such a leak in Uber’s TOS formation process.

Uber will always have a problem binding every rider to a TOS (and thus arbitration). If an Uber member requests a ride that includes unrelated individuals, Uber doesn’t know who the additional passengers are or have any direct contact with them sufficient to form a TOS with them. Thus, Uber inevitably has limited arguments to divert non-members into arbitration.

In this respect, Uber is in a better position to bind Uber “Guests.” If Uber gets an order for a guest, it could cancel the ride unless the guest agrees to the TOS, such as requring the guest to reply to its text (as the court says, “Uber, for instance, could require guest riders to confirm receipt of the Terms by responding to its text message”) or clicking through some TOS offer screen before the guest order is confirmed. However, I doubt these options would be very popular. For example, guests may not have a cellphone or may have some infirmity that explains why third parties are handling their affairs.

Alternatively, Uber could put the burden on drivers to ensure that everyone who gets in the car has agreed to Uber’s terms somewhere/somehow.

First, Uber could require everyone ordering a ride to specify the identity of riders and their contact info, and then confirm them like the guest protocol I mentioned above. This would require drivers to then block access to guests who didn’t assent to the TOS. I don’t think anyone would love this solution, including drivers who might face physical threats for denying rides or potentially leave people stranded in dangerous situations.

Second, Uber could put some kind of TOS disclosure on car windows, such as “by entering this vehicle, you agree to the TOS.” (Call it a…window-wrap?). Putting aside the legal dubiousness of a window-wrap, it would require drivers to implement this properly on their cars, and the odds of that are prohibitve. (Also, a car usually has multiple doors, and each one would need the disclosure if the window-wrap were to work against everyone).

In sum, it’s quite possible that Uber may never be able to bind all riders to arbitration. Then again, I don’t recall taxi services in their day routinely being able to bind their riders to arbitration either.

Case Citation: Walker v. Uber Technologies, Inc., No. 24-7154 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 28, 2026)

* * *

Schlueter-Beckner v. SimpliSafe, Inc., No. 25-4933 (9th Cir. Aug. 31, 2026)

SimpliSafe’s TOS formation via a sign-in-wrap failed for lack of visibility. The Ninth Circuit doesn’t show the screen, but the lower court opinion included this:

The Ninth Circuit first explains why it focuses only on the bottom “place order” widget, not the one on the right:

Because the fill-in items that required action and attention from the consumer were all in the left-hand column, the overall design of the page deemphasized the right column and drew focus toward the “Place order” button at the bottom of the left column. This emphasis is reinforced by the fact that the preceding “Shipping” webpage in the purchase process similarly placed the fill-in items on the left-hand side, with a similar blue action button at the bottom. Moreover, SimpliSafe presented no evidence to show that Plaintiffs must have used the “Place order” button on the right-hand side or must have read the disclosure on that side to finalize their purchase. Therefore, any insufficiency with the bottom disclosure—which may have been the only disclosure the user saw—would mean SimpliSafe failed to show its webpage provided reasonably conspicuous notice.

Then, the Ninth Circuit says that the bottom TOS offer isn’t prominent enough:

The disclosure’s placement, font size, and font color drew the user’s attention away from the disclosure. There was significant white space between the disclosure and the “Place order” button; the text of the “Place order” button was seemingly twice the size of the disclosure’s text; and the “Place order” button contrasted more against the white background than the disclosure’s gray text….

Go back and double-check the white space between the TOS offer and acceptance button. Seriously?

The court continues:

Above the bottom disclosure, the purchasing webpage includes a line of text warning users their credit card information would be automatically saved to the account for future use. This warning is in larger font than the disclosure, italicized, and in navy text against the light gray background. As a result of these design choices, the credit card notice contrasts starkly on the page and draws the eye. So, while SimpliSafe utilized design elements to ensure the user saw the warning aboutretaining credit card information, “they have not done the same to alert a consumerto the Terms of Use.”

Would you say that the credit card warning was so much more prominent than the TOS offer?

Some plaintiffs also signed up for alarm monitoring, and that signup process failed too. The TOS offer labeled the TOS “SimpliSafe Terms and Consent to Communicate, for Notifications and Alerts.” The court said that sounds like the TOS only related to SimpliSafe’s messages, not a more comprehensive set of TOS terms.

Also, the TOS offer and acceptance button didn’t match:

the disclosure stated “[b]y submitting this number” Plaintiffs agreed to the terms, but the action button on the webform only stated “Next.” This mismatch of terms could easily confuse users.

As I”ve said before:

* * *

Uhl v. Roblox Corp., No. 25-5057 (9th Cir. Sept. 3, 2026)

Roblox’s TOS contains an arbitration clause but “Roblox did not move to compel arbitration—for months on end.” Roblox claimed it needed to know the plaintiff’s username to determine if the case was arbitrable, but Roblox didn’t seek any discovery to resolve this ambiguity. Instead, it litigated the preliminary stages of the case in court, including a removal motion, a remand, and a substantive motion to dismiss.

This makes it look like Roblox sandbagged the arbitration issue. The majority summarizes:

a party cannot ask the district court to dismiss a complaint on the merits, holding in reserve a claimed right to arbitrate that will be exercised only if it does not like the district court’s decision.

Judge Bumatay (a TAFS judge) dissents, saying the law wasn’t settled or clear that Roblox was waiving its arbitration rights by proceeding as it did.