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Comment by _v7gu | Hacker News Reader

There's no way this is going to hold up in any kind of court. A 50-100$ fine might have flown under the radar, but 1000$ is enough incentive for taking this to a small claims court.

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> There's no way this is going to hold up in any kind of court.

The terms of service also include a binding arbitration clause. In my limited understanding (Not a lawyer), how the arbitrators come to their conclusion need not have any basis in law, and in the vast majority of cases, and will not get reexamined by a real court.

I fear there is a real possibility for someone to be forced through a Kafkaesque nightmare before this gets resolved.

> The terms of service also include a binding arbitration clause.

Also wouldn't hold up.

In the US, it's legal: https://www.wsj.com/articles/supreme-court-sides-with-busine...

Wasn't that ruling about class action suits, though?

As I understand it, that's a very specific status that must be explicitly sought, and while it doesn't seem to be unusual under the US legal system, plenty of other places don't have a direct equivalent.

Interesting... the arbitration clause includes a clause that might (if I recall correctly) be a response to a case where the person making the complaint ran out of money (Arbitration filing fees (and the arbitrators hourly fee) tend to be much more expensive than regular court). A higher court eventually ruled that requiring excessive fees to resolve a disagreement wasn't constitutio9nal (equal protection?), and the case was allowed to restart in regular court. Basically you could agree to arbitration, but you couldn't agree to terms that completely blocked any path to justice.

Which, again if I recall correctly, is why companies started adding clauses like this to their arbitration agreements:

> If the arbitrator finds that you cannot afford to pay AAA’s filing, administrative, hearing and/or other fees and you cannot obtain a waiver from AAA, Wag! will pay them for you.

The company doesn't have to worry you might fall back to the regular court if they ensure the fees are paid. This couod keep you in arbitration, but this is a double-sided weapon: the company agreed to pay potentially many thousands of dollars in arbitration fees. Even this stupid $1000 termination fee wouldn't justify paying for arbitration. The company would be very strongly incentivized to settle quickly, before they are required to pay $2k filing fees and $400+ per hour arbitrator fees..

(I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. Talk to an actual lawyer about the specific TOS for proper advice!)

Also, some interesting language right after that promise to pay arbitration fees:

> In addition, Wag! will reimburse all such AAA’s filing, administrative, hearing and/or other fees for proceedings involving claims totaling less than $10,000 unless the arbitrator determines the claims are frivolous. Wag! will not seek attorneys' fees and costs in arbitration unless the arbitrator determines your claims are frivolous.

An interesting case of a company shooting itself in the foot via forced arbitration is Chipotle. They convinced a court to exclude employees who agreed to arbitration from a class action, so those employees each filed individually (helped by the class action lawyers), which has turned out to be vastly more expensive for Chipotle.

https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-chipo...

Also, of course, Uber:

https://www.reuters.com/article/legal-us-otc-uber/forced-int...

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-uber-ipo-arbitration-...

Arbitration is still not great since the arbitrator doesn't have to be anyone with a legal background (most of the time it's a retired judge though) and has a huge incentive to rule in favor of the people paying them (especially if there's a big chance wag comes back to the arbitrator for future arbitration cases)

I am also not a lawyer, and wonder how far arbitration stretches: If an anbiter determines that damages are owed, and the person doesn't pay, does that dealing with that revert to the courts? Who enforces the arbitration -- The police? If an arbiter makes a decision which is clearly illegal, will a court refuse to enforce it?

IANAL but my understanding in my state is that the prevailing party will go to court and file a petition to confirm the arbitration award. The result of that is a judgment that is legally enforceable. Or conversely the loser can petition the court to vacate the arbitration award if they believe it to be unreasonable.

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