Lawsuits against Airbnb + guest, the appeals stage

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Never underestimate the power of the people who put you there to begin with.

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OK, I found what I was looking for, it’s Ginsburg’s dissent in Lamps v Varela. Starts on p. 19 of the linked PDF.

Kind of a dense read, but WORTH studying bec. it applies to our problems w/ the Air contract, some salient points:

Joining JUSTICE KAGAN’s dissenting opinion in full, I write separately to emphasize once again how treacherously the Court has strayed from the principle that “arbitration is a matter of consent, not coercion.” [See how none of us had any choice but to sign Air’s contract w. its forced arbitration.]

Congress enacted the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in 1925 “to enable merchants of roughly equal bargaining power to enter into binding agreements to arbitrate commercial disputes.” The Act was not designed to govern contracts “in which one of the parties characteristically has little bargaining power.” [Obviously applies to Airbnb]

The Court has relied on the FAA, not simply to overcome once-prevalent judicial resistance to enforcement of arbitration disputes between businesses. In relatively recent years, it has routinely deployed the law to deny to employees and consumers “effective relief against powerful economic entities.”

Piling Pelion on Ossa, the Court has hobbled the capacity of employees and consumers to band together in a judicial or arbitral forum. [closely related to @NordlingHouse’s point, above]

Employees and consumers forced to arbitrate solo face severe impediments to the “vindication of their rights.” “Expenses entailed in mounting individual claims will often far outweigh potential recoveries.”

Shut from the Court’s sight is the “Hobson’s choice” employees face: “accept arbitration on their employer’s terms or give up their jobs.”

The Court’s ever-larger expansion of the [Federal Arbitration Act’s] scope contrasts sharply with how other countries treat mandatory arbitration clauses in consumer contracts of adhesion. A 1993 European Union Directive forbids binding consumers to unfair contractual terms, defined as those “not . . . individually negotiated” that “caus[e] a significant imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations . . . to the detriment of the consumer.”

As a side note, to get a better sense of the person behind these dissents, I recently watched the documentary about her. I would highly commend it to others being as her life story is in a word fascinating and I will avoid spoilers, but I had somehow not been aware of her bravery in arguing women’s rights in front of the all-male SCOTUS prior to her appointment. You can watch this on Hulu or get a free trial to Hulu or Magnolia Streaming to watch, or pay to watch on Amazon Prime, etc. I think it is not on Netflix, unfortunately.

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I figured she would come in to this sooner or later.

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Hi,

Thank you so much for posting your experience as a Super Host with Airbnb and fighting back for being banned from the community. It’s giving me hope after speaking with a lawyer yesterday who left me feeling hopeless.

Until last month, I was a Super Host. I was 4.9 stared with great guest reviews. That was until a long-term guest who stayed with my partner and me for six months filed two false complaints with Airbnb’s Safety Team and customer service team for discrimination and then posted a false review. This is after he called the police falsely accusing me of domestic violence on February 29. Needless to say, the police didn’t arrest me or charge me, but oversaw the guest and his wife remove their belongings from my partner’s and my house and escorted them from our property. Airbnb banned me from the platform based on the former guest’s false accusations.

I have felt extremely hurt by Airbnb for not doing more to really investigate my case, instead of whatever the company calls investigating, before making its decision.

I finally Googled if other Super Hosts have had similar experiences with bad guests making false claims causing hosts to be banned from the platform today after my partner found similar stories. I don’t feel as alone as I have for nearly a month.

I’m in California, so your small claims court case win and the incredible steps you provided posting your experience is very helpful to me. As soon as the coronavirus pandemic is over I will hopefully be able to move forward with having my reputation and account restored. Thank you.

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I am so sorry this happened to you, @girlsthatroam. Here is another option that an attorney friend JUST sent me:

The New York Times: ‘Scared to Death’ by Arbitration: Companies Drowning in Their Own System

Lawyers and a Silicon Valley start-up have found ways to flood the system with claims, so companies are looking to thwart a process they created.

This fascinates me. One could organize all similarly mistreated hosts and flood Airbnb with arbitration claims, which in a sense would almost be poetic justice – an even stickier problem for Air than a mounting difficult court challenges in varied court venues.

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Hi PuppyLover,

I just finished watching your videos.

Thank you. Yes, it’s been very distressing. It angered my other guest when she saw the review the former guest posted. It was then that she told me she witnessed the guest’s attempt to intimidate me by yelling at me and getting into my face before I told him to leave the house. Airbnb never called her to check to see if she was safe or to question her during its so-called investigation. She provided a letter she sent to Airbnb on my behalf. I haven’t heard anything from the company. Big surprise.

Anyway, thank you for the link to the NYT article. I’ll definitely read it.

You might find this interesting, but Airbnb and other big companies might try to squash the legislation mentioned in the article. It’s most likely put on hold right now anyway due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Right now, I have to wait because I can’t even get the police report that was filed to find out what was in the report due to the pandemic shutting everything down. I was so upset by the situation and the actions taken by the former guest and Airbnb following the incident that I shut down rather than immediately standing up to fight back.

Anyway, thank you again.

Heather

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https://abc7news.com/7-on-your-side-arbitration-consumer-reports-clauses-closer-look-at/5922429/
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Hi PuppyLover,

Much thanks for the NYT link. Airbnb and Homeaway are both under FairShake’s Travel tab, but it’s for guests, not hosts. I’ll dig deeper.

Thank you again.

Heather

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Debbie Downer here.

I don’t know what kind of timeline you are thinking but I hope it’s a long one. I don’t think things are going back to “normal” for months, maybe years. At a minimum we need effective treatment and vaccine for Covid. Another unintended consequence of this is an acceleration of the negativity toward Airbnb. Some hosts are continuing to host and some cities and regions have banned Airbnb. People no longer put up with defacto hotels in their neighborhood. Even with a shared home situation like I have (and it sounds like you do too) people don’t want to see a car with New York plates parked in my driveway.

Also Airbnb is going to be swamped with problems and while they drag their heels the courts are going to rightfully say “coronavirus.”

Best of luck and do hang around!

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I agree. This is a complete death knell for Airbnb, I cannot imagine the extent to which its revenues have crashed, and the investor hosts who are leveraged are in huge trouble.

A vaccine is unlikely, for the same reason there is no vaccine for the common cold, another form of coronavirus. (Too many strains and too frequent mutations.) And if one does arrive on the scene, I would urge everyone to do their own research on the fiasco that was the swine flu vaccine, which lead to cases of Guillian Barre disease, which wrecked by aunt’s life among others. Cure worse than the disease.

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