Nigerians Phish a B2B Transaction & Steal $736k. Who Bears the Loss?–Beau Townsend Ford v. Don Hinds Ford
This case could be a law school exam. Beau Townsend Ford (the seller) was looking to unload Ford Explorers in bulk. Their sales guy connects with a person at Don Hinds Ford (the buyer). They had transacted with each other…
Ninth Circuit Blesses Amazon’s Terms of Service
Plaintiff appealed from a district court order granting Amazon’s motion to compel arbitration based on an arbitration clause in its “Conditions of Use.” My blog post on the trial court ruling: “Court Enforces Arbitration Clause in Amazon’s Terms of Service–Fagerstrom…
No “Contract By Tweet” for Plaintiff Who Pitches Movie Idea via Social Media
This is an idea theft case based on the idea behind “Creed” the movie, a spinoff of the famous Rocky movies. Jarrett Alexander alleged that he came up with the idea for Creed, drafted the screenplay, and put together a…
Catching Up on Ninth Circuit CFAA Jurisprudence (Internet Law Casebook Excerpt)
[Eric’s note: this is another excerpt from my Internet Law casebook. Venkat and I couldn’t blog last year’s chaotic and messy Ninth Circuit’s CFAA jurisprudence in real time. I nevertheless took one for the team and tried to make sense of the…
Non-Compete Applies To Facebook Page for Unlaunched Business–Joseph v. O’Laughlin
This is another case where the defendant allegedly solicits customers or employees over social media in the face of a restrictive covenant. We recently blogged a couple of cases involving solicitations over LinkedIn. This case involves solicitations over Facebook. O’Laughlin…
Browsewrap/Clickwrap Distinction Vexes Another Court–Nevarez v. Ticketmaster
We just blogged about online contract formation yesterday, but it’s worth revisiting the topic so quickly because this case demonstrates another crash-and-burn failure of the browsewrap-clickwrap dichotomy. How many times must the “wrap” categorization fail before judges recognize that it’s…
Uber’s Contract Upheld in Second Circuit–Meyer v. Uber
This is a lawsuit alleging price fixing against Uber and its former CEO Travis Kalanick. Uber (and Kalanick) moved to compel arbitration on the basis of the arbitration clause in Uber’s terms of service. The district court found that Uber’s…
LinkedIn Enjoined From Blocking Scraper–hiQ v. LinkedIn
hiQ Labs has scraped LinkedIn public profiles for several years. hiQ offers two products, entirely predicated on LinkedIn-scraped data: (1) a prediction to employers which employees were mostly likely to be recruited away, and (2) a summary of employee skills….
‘Blatant Sales Pitch’ on LinkedIn Likely Violates Non-solicitation Clause–Mobile Mini v. Vevea
This is a noncompete dispute. Defendant Vevea worked for Mobile Mini. She signed an agreement with Mobile Mini restricting her post-employment activities. Specifically, she agreed: not to work in the Portable Storage Business at a location within fifty miles of…
Courts Keep Shredding Online Contract Formation Processes–McGhee v. NAB; Applebaum v. Lyft
A couple more online contract formation cases to enliven your Saturday: McGhee v. NAB This case involves mobile credit card processing services. The plaintiffs are merchants who think they were overcharged for card readers. The vendor invoked the arbitration clause…