The company behind TurboTax has lost out on a bid to compel arbitration in a case brought on behalf of consumers who were eligible to file their taxes for free who claim they were fooled into paying for tax filing services. 

In a ruling exploring the limits of so-called “sign-in wrap” agreements, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California on Thursday found that the company’s terms of service were not “reasonably conspicuous” and that consumers, therefore, didn’t agree to arbitrate disputes with TurboTax maker Intuit. The terms of use were hyperlinked in blue text under the TurboTax sign-in button, but not underlined, falling short of what the judge called “the gold standard.” Breyer also found that Intuit’s sign-in and account recovery pages contained multiple, confusingly similar hyperlinks purportedly binding consumers to both the “Turbo Terms of Use” and the “Turbo Tax Terms of Use,” only the latter of which contained the arbitration agreement the company was seeking to enforce. 

This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.

To view this content, please continue to their sites.

Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now

Why am I seeing this?

LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law are third party online distributors of the broad collection of current and archived versions of ALM's legal news publications. LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law customers are able to access and use ALM's content, including content from the National Law Journal, The American Lawyer, Legaltech News, The New York Law Journal, and Corporate Counsel, as well as other sources of legal information.

For questions call 1-877-256-2472 or contact us at [email protected]