Professor Horton Talks to Guardian, Bloomberg, MSNBC About Uber, Disney Arbitration Challenges

Professor and arbitration expert David Horton appeared in the The Guardian and on Bloomberg’s On the Merits podcast and MSNBC’s The ReidOut program to speak about high-profile attempts by Disney and Uber to enforce arbitration clauses to which customers (often unwittingly) agreed while using the companies’ apps.

In August, Disney backtracked on its highly publicized challenge to a wrongful death lawsuit brought by a widower whose wife had died after eating at restaurant at one of its resorts. Before reversing course, Disney had claimed widower had agreed to arbitration through his Disney+ streaming account. 

But a New Jersey couple lost their bid to take Uber to court after their rideshare driver ran a red light and injured them in a collision – because their daughter had agreed to an arbitration provision in accepting terms and conditions while using her mother’s Uber Eats account.

Horton told the Guardian the New Jersey couple's case “illustrates how hard it is for everyday people to avoid surrendering their right to file lawsuits in court.”

Horton has written extensively on arbitration clauses, including in the widely read 2020 University of Pennsylvania Law Review article “Infinite Arbitration Clauses” and the forthcoming Washington University Law Review article “Accidental Arbitration.”

Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law David Horton's primary research and teaching interests are wills and trusts, contracts, and arbitration law.  In 2015, his article "In Partial Defense of Probate: Evidence from Alameda County, California" was selected as the winner of the 29th annual Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Scholarly Paper Competition and he was honored with UC Davis School of Law’s Distinguished Teaching Award.