7th Circ. Affirmed Dist. Court Arbitration Refusal in Sosa v Onfido

CPW previously lined a district court’s refusal to compel arbitration for litigation brought from a biometric software package developer underneath Illinois Biometric Data Privateness Act (“BIPA”), locating that the suitable arbitration settlement did not include the defendant.  Sosa v. Onfido, Inc., 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 658 (N.D. Unwell.).  Yesterday the Seventh Circuit affirmed the  ruling, agreeing with the district court docket “in all respects.”  Sosa v. Onfido, Inc., 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 23816 (7th Cir. Aug. 11, 2021).  Read through on to understand much more and what it indicates heading forward.

As readers will recall, the plaintiff in Sosa had an account with Offerup, Inc., a market wherever people get and market products on the web.  In accordance to the pleadings, OfferUp partnered with the defendant, Onfido, to set up users’ identities.  Specially, the plaintiff alleged that buyers (which include himself) add their driver’s license or ID along with pics of their faces, and that Onfido’s program scans the illustrations or photos and extracts biometric identifiers in order to verify if they match the uploaded IDs.  The plaintiff submitted a putative class motion criticism, alleging that Onfido violated BIPA by allegedly collecting and storing biometric data without the need of acquiring penned releases and furnishing specified expected notices.

Onfido invoked the arbitration provision in OfferUp’s Conditions of Provider, which Onfido claimed the plaintiff agreed to when he registered for OfferUp and every time he accessed his account. Ordinarily, as a make any difference of Illinois regulation, only signatories to an arbitration agreement can implement it, but Onfido argued that three courtroom-recognized exceptions to this rule utilized: (1) third-get together beneficiary, (2) equitable estoppel, and (3) company.

The district courtroom rejected each of Onfido’s nonparty deal enforcement theories and denied Onfido’s movement to compel particular person arbitration.  Among other results, the district court docket held that Onfido “failed to set up that it was a 3rd-party beneficiary of the Conditions of Assistance or that it could if not implement the contract’s arbitration provision possibly as an agent of OfferUp or on equitable estoppel grounds.”

An attractiveness to the Seventh Circuit adopted.

Assessing the district court’s refusal to compel arbitration de novo, the Seventh Circuit pointed out that Illinois courts recognize a “strong presumption from conferring contractual gains on noncontracting third parties” and “[t]o get over that presumption, ‘the implication that the agreement applies to third events should be so strong as to be nearly an specific declaration.’” (emphasis equipped) (quotation omitted).  Below, Onfido was not named in the Terms of Support nor did any other provision build its status as a third-party beneficiary.  To the contrary, the Seventh Circuit held, the Conditions of Assistance explicitly point out “that the deal makes no ‘private correct of action on the element of any 3rd social gathering.’”

Nor did any of Onfido’s other arguments go muster.  To start with, Onfido’s agency theory supporting arbitration failed as the Seventh Circuit dominated “that OfferUp encouraged customers to sign-up their identities with the app’s TruYou function and that Onfido and OfferUp partnered to provide this technological know-how by way of the app establishes absolutely nothing additional than a small business romance concerning the parties—not agency.” (emphasis equipped).  Next, nor did the Seventh Circuit come across any equitable things to consider supporting adoption of Onfido’s place.

This ruling confirms that plaintiff’s BIPA promises versus this ID-verifying computer software developer will be solved in federal courtroom, not arbitration.  The circumstance also offers a cautionary observe that although an arbitration agreement can defeat a data privacy litigation, this sort of provisions have to be thoroughly drafted to cover anticipated promises and disputes.


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Countrywide Regulation Assessment, Quantity XI, Range 224