Grice v. United States District Court for the Central District of California, No. 20-70780 (9th Cir. 2020)
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Uber’s smartphone application connects riders needing transportation with available local drivers. Rideshare fares are charged automatically via the Uber App, with Uber withholding a percentage as a “service fee.” Grice, an Alabama Uber driver, has used the Uber App since 2016 to provide rideshare services to and from Huntsville International Airport and Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. Uber had agreements with these airports to allow Uber drivers to pick up arriving passengers. Grice, in the course of his work, never crosses state lines. Grice filed a putative class action lawsuit, alleging that Uber failed to safeguard drivers’ and riders’ personal information and mishandled a data security breach in which that information was stolen by online hackers. Uber moved to compel arbitration, citing the Technology Services Agreement that Grice and other drivers signed, requiring arbitration of “any disputes . . . arising out of or related to [the driver’s] relationship” with Uber and prohibiting arbitration “on a class, collective action, or representative basis.” Grice responded that he drives passengers who are engaged in interstate travel to and from airports and qualified for the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. 1 exemption for workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce.
The district court compelled arbitration. The Ninth Circuit denied a petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to vacate the order The district court’s decision was not clearly erroneous as a matter of law, as required for granting a writ of mandamus.
Court Description: Mandamus / Arbitration. The panel denied a petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to vacate the district court’s order compelling arbitration in an Uber driver’s putative class action alleging that the company failed to safeguard his and other drivers’ and riders’ personal information and mishandled a data security breach. The district court concluded that the Uber driver did not fall within an arbitration exemption set forth in § 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act for workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce. The panel held that, even accepting that there were some tensions between the district court’s ruling and recent circuit cases addressing the scope and application of the exemption, the district court’s decision was not clearly erroneous as a matter of law, as required for granting a writ of mandamus. * The Honorable Michael H. Watson, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, sitting by designation. IN RE GRICE 3
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