Match Group Using ‘Gamesmanship’ to Fight BIPA Claims: Plaintiff
Match Group has “stonewalled every effort” by plaintiff Marcus Baker (“Plaintiff”) for more than a year and a half to pursue his biometric privacy claims in arbitration before JAMS (formerly Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services) under terms imposed on him by the dating website, said Baker’s opposition Tuesday (docket 1:22-cv-06924) in U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois in Chicago. Baker opposes Match Group's Jan. 13 motion to dismiss his complaint on grounds that he breached his agreement to bring his claims exclusively in small claims court (see 2301170014).
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Baker’s arbitration demand asserted two violations of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act against Match Group services Tinder and OkCupid for maximum potential damages of $10,000 each. The claims fall within the Illinois small claims court’s $10,000 jurisdictional limit and the Texas small claims court’s $20,000 limit, the defendant said.
Match Group’s alleged stonewalling “is not an isolated reaction to a single individual person pursuing a claim” against the company, said the opposition. Match Group for years “has bound users to and enforced a mandatory individual arbitration provision" in its terms and conditions, it said. But when faced with thousands of users prepared to individually arbitrate their cases under those terms and conditions, Match Group “desperately looked for a way out of arbitration before JAMS,” it said.
The company invoked a “little-known provision” of JAMS rules allowing a party to ask JAMS to administratively close a case where a small claims court has jurisdiction, said the opposition, despite knowing neither small claims courts in Illinois nor Texas had jurisdiction over the claims asserted by Baker and others.
That’s not the only gamesmanship Match Group engaged in, said the opposition. In a “glaring example of bad faith,” the company “also tried to change the rules of engagement after being on notice of thousands of claims,” it said. It “unilaterally” pushed out updated terms and conditions, including “a switch to a different arbitral forum and overly burdensome pre-suit notice provisions,” it said. Match Group “chose to walk away from arbitration before JAMS, which results in a waiver of the right to arbitration and means that this action should proceed in court pursuant to the applicable rules of civil procedure,” it said.
Match Group chose small claims court “to avoid the result” of its contracts with customers, said the opposition. It shouldn’t now be permitted to seek dismissal of Baker’s “well-pled complaint, filed in a court that actually has jurisdiction over his claims,” it said. “Enough is enough. This Court has jurisdiction, and this case should proceed as a class action.”
The Federal Arbitration Act doesn’t provide a basis for Match Group’s motion to dismiss independently of a motion to compel arbitration, said Baker’s opposition. Though Match Group frames its motion as being brought pursuant to the FAA and restates the test for finding a valid arbitration agreement, it’s not actually seeking to compel Baker to arbitrate under the FAA, it said. The company doesn’t cite “a single case where a court has granted a motion to dismiss pursuant to the FAA where the defendant was not also moving to compel arbitration, never mind where the case was dismissed in favor of a forum without jurisdiction,” it said.