[00:00:09] Speaker 03: Good morning, everyone. [00:00:16] Speaker 03: Judge Bress and I warmly welcome back Judge Bennett from the District of Maryland sitting with us for the second day in a row. [00:00:23] Speaker 02: It's always a pleasure to be here, Judge Wynn. [00:00:25] Speaker 02: Thank you. [00:00:29] Speaker 03: The first three cases on the calendar [00:00:31] Speaker 03: have been submitted on the briefs and record. [00:00:35] Speaker 03: For the record, it's Alvarado versus Bondi, Durepita versus Bondi, and Fatah with Tacorn versus Bondi. [00:00:45] Speaker 03: And I'm probably totally butchering that. [00:00:48] Speaker 03: But the first case up for argument is Ramirez versus Trusper. [00:01:04] Speaker 04: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:01:06] Speaker 04: May it please the Court, Sarah Fry on behalf of the Appellant Trust for Ink doing business as Muesli. [00:01:12] Speaker 04: Your Honor, I would like to reserve two minutes of time for rebuttal. [00:01:15] Speaker 04: All right. [00:01:15] Speaker 04: The issue before this Court is not one that is new. [00:01:19] Speaker 04: In fact, the Court has heard several arguments over the past couple months involving the validity of arbitration agreements contained in Internet contracts. [00:01:31] Speaker 04: We have seen somewhat of an involvement of the case law beginning with [00:01:35] Speaker 04: The Berman line of cases where the focus was really on the font, the size, you know, the graphics. [00:01:42] Speaker 04: Whereas in Keball and this court's decision in 2024, there became a recognition that the court is not in the business of web design. [00:01:50] Speaker 04: The court's not going to tell a website owner, you have to use blue font, you have to use purple font, you have to underline, you don't have to underline. [00:01:57] Speaker 04: Instead, we're going to look at the entirety of the web page, as well as the nature of the relationship between the parties. [00:02:05] Speaker 04: The district court's error here was in failing to give due consideration to the totality of the circumstances. [00:02:14] Speaker 04: And if you look at the totality of the circumstances given the nature of the relationship, this was a relationship to begin a telehealth relationship between Ramirez and Muesli. [00:02:30] Speaker 04: She signed up for an account. [00:02:32] Speaker 04: She was presented on several occasions. [00:02:34] Speaker 04: She actually visited the website on four occasions prior to purchasing and each time went through that enrollment process and each time was given notice and access to the terms of the participant agreement. [00:02:45] Speaker 04: As the court knows, these are very fact-intensive, [00:02:50] Speaker 04: It is. [00:02:51] Speaker 03: And looking at it from a practical perspective, I really struggle with this one because you have a pop-up window and it refers to some terms page. [00:03:03] Speaker 03: You have to get to the participation agreement, which is where the arbitration clause is. [00:03:06] Speaker 03: But to do that, you have to go through multiple steps [00:03:10] Speaker 03: from the step one. [00:03:11] Speaker 03: And so I found this case more confusing than some of our other published cases. [00:03:18] Speaker 03: But what do we do with the fact that you have to struggle so much through so many steps to get to the participation agreement? [00:03:25] Speaker 04: Sure, Your Honor. [00:03:26] Speaker 04: I don't think there is a struggle, and I think it's also important to recognize that the notice was not provided in just that pop-up in that one step. [00:03:34] Speaker 04: We provide notice in two areas. [00:03:36] Speaker 04: The first is that telehealth consent form, which is found at the record at 121. [00:03:41] Speaker 04: And as your honor pointed out, that is a clear, uncluttered page. [00:03:46] Speaker 04: The only underlining on that is to that telehealth consent. [00:03:50] Speaker 04: Telehealth consent begins with capital letters. [00:03:53] Speaker 04: It's directly above an action item, so it follows a natural flow. [00:03:56] Speaker 04: That pop-up is similarly uncluttered. [00:03:59] Speaker 04: The only hyperlink is the underlying terms. [00:04:04] Speaker 02: The telehealth consent referenced by Judge Winn basically consents to the delivery of healthcare services, correct? [00:04:14] Speaker 04: Yes, it does. [00:04:15] Speaker 04: In that first part, once you click on the telehealth consent hyperlink, it takes you to the pop-up which says, by consenting to telehealth, you agree to all the terms. [00:04:26] Speaker 02: It basically relates to electronic communications, information technology, and others in terms of health issues, correct? [00:04:35] Speaker 04: No, Your Honor, if you look at the link, it says at the very bottom of that pop-up, it says, by consenting to telehealth, you agreed to consent to all of our terms and conditions. [00:04:46] Speaker 04: And that hyperlink takes you to those terms and conditions. [00:04:49] Speaker 02: But it relates to the delivery of health care services, does it not? [00:04:53] Speaker 04: Yes. [00:04:54] Speaker 02: Not in terms of participation agreement or arbitration. [00:04:56] Speaker 02: It relates to health care services as to that first step. [00:05:00] Speaker 04: Well, if you look at the, if you go, when you get to the participant agreement, if you look at that, it says, by using our services, you agree to all of our terms and conditions, and by accepting our services, you are bound by every single term and condition. [00:05:12] Speaker 01: Right. [00:05:12] Speaker 01: No, I mean, once you get to the participant participation agreement, I think you're on strong ground. [00:05:17] Speaker 01: The issue is just the path to getting there. [00:05:19] Speaker 04: Yes, and that's what I was getting to. [00:05:22] Speaker 04: So you have two different paths. [00:05:24] Speaker 04: You have that first one through the telehealth consent form. [00:05:28] Speaker 04: And I think if you look at the cases, there's no case law that I could find that said, [00:05:32] Speaker 04: because you have to click one or two or three, you know, however many times that is... Right. [00:05:36] Speaker 03: It's not a matter of clicking, but the multiple steps contributes to the confusion. [00:05:43] Speaker 03: So I think as Judge Bennett pointed out when you say, okay, by consenting to telehealth, you are agreeing to the full terms and conditions. [00:05:50] Speaker 03: I think that because it's a pop-up window relating to telehealth, I think a reasonable user would [00:05:56] Speaker 03: think that that refers to telehealth related terms and conditions, not the multiple steps that you go through to get to the participation agreement and be bound by the participation agreement, which then triggers the arbitration clause. [00:06:10] Speaker 03: That's the part that I find confusing. [00:06:12] Speaker 04: Well, and obviously, respectfully, I would disagree that it's, I think, you know, the terms are clear. [00:06:17] Speaker 04: It says visit terms, and you agree to all of our terms. [00:06:20] Speaker 04: But even if you were, if I were to agree with you that, you know, [00:06:24] Speaker 04: That first step in the enrollment process was not reasonably conspicuous. [00:06:28] Speaker 04: That doesn't end the inquiry here, because we have a second notice given when she creates the account. [00:06:34] Speaker 04: And that's in ER 139. [00:06:37] Speaker 04: And that's step two. [00:06:38] Speaker 04: And it doesn't have to do with telehealth or anything. [00:06:40] Speaker 04: But that's a second. [00:06:41] Speaker 04: And in the Kavanaugh case, there was a similar situation where there was a first step. [00:06:46] Speaker 04: And the court said, that first step is a little bit muddled. [00:06:49] Speaker 04: It's not as clear. [00:06:50] Speaker 04: But let's look at that second step. [00:06:52] Speaker 04: And the second step, the court found, was clear. [00:06:54] Speaker 04: and provided a pathway and found it was reasonably conspicuous. [00:06:57] Speaker 04: So I don't think the telehealth consent form is dispositive of this issue here, because we have that second step, where she actually did create an account. [00:07:05] Speaker 04: And if you look at that page again, it's an uncluttered hyperlink. [00:07:08] Speaker 04: It's an underlined term that begins with capital letters. [00:07:11] Speaker 04: It provides notice of the legal significance that by signing up, you agree to those terms of use. [00:07:16] Speaker 04: It's directly above an action button, which has that natural flow. [00:07:21] Speaker 04: And it's similar to some of those post-keyball decisions. [00:07:25] Speaker 04: cited a or filed a 28-J letter, recent decision Bender in the Northern District of California from August. [00:07:31] Speaker 04: Similar, you know, the district court focused on the fact that we have just underlining here and that's, underlining is not enough. [00:07:38] Speaker 04: But again, I think if you look at the total circumstances and in Bender it was also two separate login pages. [00:07:44] Speaker 04: So if the court's concern is with that telehealth, that doesn't, that's not dispositive here. [00:07:48] Speaker 04: We have that second step where she was provided notice and access to the participant terms. [00:07:54] Speaker 04: through that creating of an account. [00:07:57] Speaker 04: And again, the fact that it was, you know, multi-step is not dispositive of the case here. [00:08:03] Speaker 01: And if you contrast... What about the fact that it means that step two, if you click on that, you then, you click on the terms of use button and then it takes you [00:08:14] Speaker 01: Where? [00:08:14] Speaker 01: To this table of contents, basically? [00:08:17] Speaker 04: Yes. [00:08:18] Speaker 04: And that was something that the district court brought up and seemed to focus on as well. [00:08:22] Speaker 04: And I think that's a bit of a misnomer or red herring here. [00:08:26] Speaker 04: It seems to be a focus on whether we use the word participant agreement or use the word terms of use. [00:08:32] Speaker 04: And I disagree with the district court that we didn't provide any evidence of that. [00:08:36] Speaker 04: We submitted a declaration under penalty of perjury that it did go to a table of contents. [00:08:41] Speaker 04: And that's in our declaration that was submitted as part of our briefing in the underlying case. [00:08:48] Speaker 04: But the other thing is that the district court had in front of it a sample from plaintiff's council, their investigation that showed that table of contents. [00:08:58] Speaker 04: Now, Ramirez characterizes that as a copyright policy, which is not correct at all. [00:09:02] Speaker 04: If you actually look at that screenshot, which is that ER 91, it says in a box right at the very top, terms. [00:09:10] Speaker 04: Copyright policy just happens to be one of those terms. [00:09:12] Speaker 04: So does the participant agreement. [00:09:14] Speaker 04: There's a subscriber terms. [00:09:16] Speaker 04: So saying that it is a copyright policy is not correct. [00:09:20] Speaker 04: And again, that's re-emphasized by the actual participant agreement, which says in the very first paragraph, anyone who uses our services accepts the terms and conditions. [00:09:29] Speaker 04: That by using these services, you're bound by those. [00:09:32] Speaker 04: And I will yield the rest of my time for rebuttal unless the court has anything. [00:09:35] Speaker 03: All right. [00:09:36] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:09:36] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:09:58] Speaker 00: Good morning, Your Honours, and may it please the court. [00:10:01] Speaker 00: I think the line of questioning was focused on the right issues with the flow of the transaction here. [00:10:11] Speaker 03: Can I have you start at the notice at step two with the table of contents? [00:10:16] Speaker 03: How does it work? [00:10:17] Speaker 00: Sure. [00:10:17] Speaker 00: So one issue that we have with ER 139 is we [00:10:24] Speaker 00: The record is devoid of how it works because defendant failed its burden under this court's precedent in Jackson versus Amazon to submit how it works. [00:10:32] Speaker 03: It is true that the defendant... But there's a representative sample. [00:10:35] Speaker 00: Correct. [00:10:36] Speaker 00: It is true that they put in a declaration that described the process, but there was no actual evidence showing us how it worked. [00:10:42] Speaker 00: Now we, although it was not our burden, went ahead and did that and submitted a declaration. [00:10:47] Speaker 00: And how it works is the very first page that you see is a copyright policy. [00:10:54] Speaker 00: That is the first page that you see. [00:10:56] Speaker 00: It's in the record at ER, I believe it was 91. [00:11:02] Speaker 00: But yes, 91, ER 91. [00:11:04] Speaker 00: The very first page that you see is a copyright policy. [00:11:07] Speaker 00: It is true that there is a list of terms on the side here, or headers I could say, that list things like disclaimer, subscription terms, participant agreements, so on and so forth. [00:11:20] Speaker 00: That's not the very first page that you're brought to. [00:11:22] Speaker 00: The very first page you're brought to is the copyright policy. [00:11:25] Speaker 01: OK. [00:11:25] Speaker 01: So is that a problem, though? [00:11:27] Speaker 01: I mean, that you have to go from one page and you see it on the table of contents and you could click on the thing that says participation agreement? [00:11:34] Speaker 00: It's not a dispositive factor, but it's certainly an issue in the context of the entire transaction here. [00:11:42] Speaker 00: But of course, this assumes that ER 139, the step two screen, as I call it, [00:11:50] Speaker 00: even constitutes adequate consent. [00:11:54] Speaker 00: And under this court's precedence, it does not. [00:11:57] Speaker 00: And I've prepared a little sheet, so to speak, of all the problems here. [00:12:03] Speaker 00: So first, it fails under Berman, because the hyperlink is not conspicuous, based on font size, text size, placement, et cetera. [00:12:12] Speaker 00: And I understand that my adversary says that those precedents are being washed away, but I don't believe that's true. [00:12:18] Speaker 00: And I think the Cruz case that we cited [00:12:20] Speaker 00: in a 28-J letter from the California Court of Appeal from just a few months ago confirms that, at least in California. [00:12:27] Speaker 01: I mean, it's fairly conspicuous, though, right? [00:12:29] Speaker 01: I mean, it's right above the, it says terms of use, it's clearly hyperlinked, it's black and white, and it's right above the create an account. [00:12:35] Speaker 01: So, I mean, we've seen worse. [00:12:37] Speaker 00: Sure, there are worse, but there are much better as well. [00:12:41] Speaker 00: I mean, I think we can look at Tribola. [00:12:44] Speaker 00: The language is problematic, too, and this is the same issue you had in Tribola. [00:12:48] Speaker 00: What does it mean to, quote, sign up? [00:12:50] Speaker 00: Does creating an account sign you up? [00:12:53] Speaker 00: And that is the exact same language in the Tabola case that this court found was ambiguous and unclear as to what the action the user was taking. [00:13:02] Speaker 01: Well, what is the difference between step one and step two? [00:13:04] Speaker 01: What are you doing at each step? [00:13:07] Speaker 00: At step two, you're creating an account. [00:13:10] Speaker 00: At step one, you are finding a doctor. [00:13:14] Speaker 00: So no step. [00:13:15] Speaker 02: Step one relates to health care consent, essentially. [00:13:19] Speaker 02: I mean, it's health services. [00:13:20] Speaker 02: The question I'd asked earlier, Ms. [00:13:21] Speaker 02: Fry, was the first step has to do with, it says telehealth. [00:13:25] Speaker 02: It has to do with health matters, not a participation agreement, essentially. [00:13:29] Speaker 00: That's correct. [00:13:30] Speaker 00: We agree with that. [00:13:31] Speaker 00: And we would also note, so that I can put this out there on the record for your consideration, even if you go to 122, the so-called telehealth consent, again, it says on the third paragraph, [00:13:44] Speaker 00: For Musely's full terms and conditions, please visit the terms page or click the link provided below. [00:13:48] Speaker 00: There is no link below. [00:13:50] Speaker 00: So that further adds to the confusion that is this underlying terms page a link or is there a link below? [00:13:56] Speaker 00: There is no link below. [00:13:58] Speaker 00: So a user sees that and unclear how they get there. [00:14:02] Speaker 01: But if step one has a lot of problems but step two is better, is there a relationship between the two steps? [00:14:08] Speaker 01: Could we focus on step two and say, well, that one is fine? [00:14:16] Speaker 00: I mean, I suppose, although I do think the overall context of the transaction matters. [00:14:23] Speaker 00: A user here understands that, okay, I've consented to some sort of a telehealth consent, which, by the way, I don't concede anybody consented to that, because that's a prechecked box. [00:14:33] Speaker 01: Everybody who's at step two has already gone through step one. [00:14:36] Speaker 01: You have to go through step one to get to step two. [00:14:38] Speaker 00: That's correct, but you don't have to check the I agree box. [00:14:41] Speaker 00: It's prechecked for you. [00:14:43] Speaker 00: So you would have to affirmatively uncheck it. [00:14:45] Speaker 00: which is also a problem under this court's precedence, under Goudon most recently. [00:14:52] Speaker 00: But assuming for the sake of argument that we get to step two and we've agreed to step one, step two is still littered with problems. [00:15:00] Speaker 00: Those problems that I went over, Berman, the placement, Cruz supporting Berman, Chabola, Goudon, what does it mean to sign up? [00:15:10] Speaker 00: And then also this court's precedent recently in Plata versus Land's End, [00:15:14] Speaker 00: The link does not take you to the terms of use. [00:15:17] Speaker 00: It takes you to a copyright policy. [00:15:19] Speaker 00: Maybe. [00:15:19] Speaker 00: We don't know, because the defendant didn't even show us what it looks like. [00:15:23] Speaker 00: They just submitted a declaration that describes it. [00:15:26] Speaker 03: And we don't really know for sure, but presumably at the notice at step two, when you click on the terms, it's not a scrolling situation, right? [00:15:35] Speaker 00: You have to click on each individual tab. [00:15:37] Speaker 00: That's my understanding, yes. [00:15:38] Speaker 00: Although, again, we don't know for sure, because the defendant failed to put that into the record, which I think is [00:15:44] Speaker 00: dispositive of the entire thing under your court's precedence in Jackson versus Amazon. [00:15:50] Speaker 01: I thought the defendant says, you know, we put in an affidavit that swears to that. [00:15:55] Speaker 00: They put an affidavit that generally describes the process. [00:15:58] Speaker 00: That's a far cry from showing what the process looks like. [00:16:06] Speaker 00: So moving on then, there's also a [00:16:13] Speaker 00: problem here, and the district court did not reach this because the district court concluded correctly that the notice was not conspicuous. [00:16:20] Speaker 00: But even if your honors were to disagree with that, there's no manifestation of assent here. [00:16:26] Speaker 00: And that is an independent basis to affirm the district court's decision. [00:16:31] Speaker 00: In the first instance, as I mentioned, step one has a pre-checked box. [00:16:36] Speaker 00: Pre-checked boxes under this court's precedent and a gudan are not a manifestation of assent. [00:16:42] Speaker 00: And under the second step, you still have the problem of signing up, which, as this court held in Chabola and then again in Dukgodan, I don't want to use the term magic words. [00:16:56] Speaker 00: I understand the court doesn't want magic words. [00:16:58] Speaker 00: But it's unclear. [00:17:01] Speaker 00: If it had said, by creating an account, that might be a better argument for the defense. [00:17:05] Speaker 00: But it doesn't say that. [00:17:07] Speaker 00: It says, by signing up. [00:17:08] Speaker 00: And then it says, create an account. [00:17:10] Speaker 00: It's unclear what relationship those two have. [00:17:13] Speaker 00: So I don't believe there's a manifestation of assent. [00:17:16] Speaker 00: And I believe that's an independent basis under this court's precedence, most recently in Chabola and Godin to affirm the district court's ruling. [00:17:32] Speaker 00: Additionally, turning to the actual participant agreement, so even if a user [00:17:39] Speaker 00: were to find this participant agreement after going through a maze of terms. [00:17:43] Speaker 00: The participant agreement does absolutely nothing to highlight or call to the user's attention that it even contains an arbitration clause. [00:17:52] Speaker 00: The arbitration clause is buried under a header entitled applicable law. [00:18:00] Speaker 00: And this court's precedents also indicate that arbitration clauses need to be called out and made clear to consumers that they are agreeing to them. [00:18:09] Speaker 00: which the defendant fails to do here. [00:18:13] Speaker 02: I'd also note... That was, I gather, the purpose of your citing the recent opinion six weeks ago in Cruz, I guess. [00:18:21] Speaker 02: Your point about print was half the size, or there was something that was just buried in the Cruz case as well. [00:18:27] Speaker 02: That was the reason you cited that under Rule 28, is that right? [00:18:30] Speaker 00: That's one of the reasons, yes. [00:18:32] Speaker 00: And I'm glad Your Honor asked that question, because I think it bears repeating, this Court is tasked with [00:18:38] Speaker 00: applying California law to this question. [00:18:40] Speaker 00: This is an issue of California contract law. [00:18:42] Speaker 00: And we know how the California courts think, because Cruz just told us a few months ago. [00:18:46] Speaker 00: So to any extent that there's a question other whether Chibola is being, as my adversary said, kind of rolled back, I think Cruz went ahead and dispelled that notion that the California courts are not construing it that way. [00:19:03] Speaker 00: And this court's job here is to apply California law. [00:19:07] Speaker 00: Finally, I would note that I think defendant focuses on the nature of the relationship. [00:19:14] Speaker 00: And because it is some sort of a telehealth relationship, there's an understanding of a continuing relationship and an understanding of some contractual agreement. [00:19:23] Speaker 00: Fair enough, we don't dispute that. [00:19:24] Speaker 00: But it is not a dispositive factor under California law. [00:19:27] Speaker 00: And I think that's where the defendant gets in where its argument fails. [00:19:32] Speaker 00: And we cite a number of cases in our briefing. [00:19:35] Speaker 00: showing that under California law that is simply not a dispositive factor, and it's a factor that the district court considered noted weighed in the defense's favor, but still held the other factors weighed in our favor. [00:19:47] Speaker 00: And I think that's a perfectly permissible ruling under California law and something that this court should affirm. [00:19:54] Speaker 00: With that, I will rest on the papers. [00:19:57] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:19:57] Speaker 03: Thank you, counsel. [00:20:09] Speaker 04: I want to briefly address the Cruz case since that came up, the recent decision. [00:20:14] Speaker 04: I don't think Cruz changed anything. [00:20:17] Speaker 04: And I think if you look at Cruz, it's very distinguishable from the case here. [00:20:20] Speaker 04: That case involved a purchase of a Kate Spade handbag. [00:20:24] Speaker 04: And the notice was provided on the checkout page. [00:20:29] Speaker 04: And it was a two-column web page that had advertisements for gift cards. [00:20:33] Speaker 04: It had links to stylists for handbags and clothing. [00:20:38] Speaker 04: The court noted that the notice was in barely legible gray font and even said they had to squint to see it. [00:20:45] Speaker 04: Very different situation than what we have here where we have, you know, clear, uncluttered hyperlinks that go to this agreement. [00:20:54] Speaker 04: And, you know, to the point as to the steps, you absolutely, if the court finds issue with the telehealth content, you absolutely can reverse the district court based on step two, and that is the Kavanaugh case where the court did exactly that. [00:21:06] Speaker 04: The court said, okay, this first step is a little bit problematic but you also have this second step where you're creating this account and that gave clear notice. [00:21:16] Speaker 01: The district court had a problem with was just the evidentiary showing on this piece of it and he basically, the judge said, well, Musely doesn't provide the hyperlink, it doesn't attach a screenshot or provide any other evidence to describe this page any further. [00:21:31] Speaker 01: So is that accurate? [00:21:33] Speaker 04: I don't think it's totally accurate, because like I said, we did submit evidence of it. [00:21:37] Speaker 01: What was the evidence, though? [00:21:38] Speaker 04: Through the declaration. [00:21:39] Speaker 04: The other thing is that the court. [00:21:40] Speaker 01: Right, but the judge is saying that you didn't provide the hyperlink for the table of contents. [00:21:44] Speaker 01: Is that true? [00:21:44] Speaker 04: That is correct. [00:21:45] Speaker 01: How about attach a screenshot of it? [00:21:47] Speaker 04: That was not part of the record. [00:21:49] Speaker 04: But the court did have in front of it another screenshot, which it did consider, which was presented by Ramirez. [00:21:56] Speaker 04: And the court looked at that. [00:21:57] Speaker 04: And again, it's not a copyright policy. [00:22:01] Speaker 04: conveniently ignores that it says in a big box right up in the middle, terms. [00:22:06] Speaker 04: And again, the fact that it was presented in a table of contents is not by itself problematic. [00:22:12] Speaker 04: There's nothing else. [00:22:12] Speaker 04: We'll rest on our papers. [00:22:13] Speaker 04: Thank you, Your Honors. [00:22:14] Speaker 03: Thank you, counsel, to both sides for your argument. [00:22:16] Speaker 03: The matter is submitted.