Comb v. Paypal, Inc

In Comb v. Paypal, Inc., 218 F. Supp. 2d 1165 (N.D. Cal. 2002), Inc. sought to compel individual arbitration in a nationwide class action suit for injunctive relief concerning PayPal's fraud investigation practices and procedures. Comb, 218 F. Supp. 2d at 1166-67. As a contractual defense, unconscionability may apply to an arbitration provision. Id. at 1172. The district court held the User Agreement met the criteria for procedural unconscionability under California law because the amount of the average PayPal transaction was $ 55.00 and there was a factual dispute as to whether PayPal's competitors offered their services without requiring customers to enter into arbitration agreements. Id. at 1173. The district court ruled that substantive unconscionability was also shown by the lack of mutuality of remedies between PayPal and its customers, by a prohibition against consolidation of claims under circumstances where most claims will be too small to pursue individually, and because the arbitration clause required commercial arbitration and the $ 5,000 cost of arbitration would be shared pro rata. Id. at 1173-76. The district court concluded that it would be unconscionable to require "individual consumers from throughout the country to travel to one locale to arbitrate claims involving such minimal sums." Id. at 1177.