Uber loses top court bid to arbitrate rider’s death claims

The man’s wife – who had her own Uber account – later filed wrongful death and survival claims against the company as independent administrator of her husband’s estate. She occupied three distinct legal roles: the estate’s personal representative, the wrongful death beneficiary under the Illinois Wrongful Death Act, and an individual Uber user bound by her own terms of service. 

Uber wanted all claims in arbitration. The trial court drew a line. It sent the survival claims – which belonged to the estate and flowed from the deceased’s own rights – to arbitration under his agreement. But the wrongful death claims stayed in court. The wife’s agreement was “largely irrelevant,” the trial court found, because it covered her usage, not her husband’s. 

The appellate court saw it differently and reversed, ruling that a delegation clause in the wife’s agreement handed the arbitrability question to an arbitrator. 

The supreme court put it back. 

The case turned on delegation – where an arbitration agreement gives the arbitrator, rather than a judge, the authority to decide whether a dispute belongs in arbitration at all. The court held that enforcing a delegation clause requires “clear and unmistakable evidence” that the parties agreed to delegate that specific dispute.