A Florida appellate court reversed a Manatee County Circuit Court’s decision involving a Texas couple who discovered their three-day stay in an Airbnb rental in Longboat Key, Florida had been secretly recorded without their consent or knowledge.
John and Jane Doe sued Wayne Natt and Airbnb, alleging that Airbnb failed to warn them of past invasions of privacy that had occurred at other properties rented through Airbnb and that Airbnb failed to ensure that Natt's condominium unit, which they had rented, did not contain electronic recording devices, according to the appellate court decision.
In response to the lawsuit, Airbnb filed a motion to compel arbitration, arguing that the complaint was subject to arbitration under Airbnb's terms of service. On March 7, 2019, the lower trial court granted Airbnb’s motion to compel arbitration, claiming that it could not decide the issue of arbitrability since the parties “entered an express agreement which incorporated the AAA [American Arbitration Association] rules and that this court is therefore bound to submit the issue of arbitrability to the arbitrator.”
On appeal, the Does won.
On March 25, Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal decided that a provision referencing an arbitration rule that grants an arbitrator the authority to decide arbitrability does not supplant a court's power to rule on the issue of arbitrability.
“The contract's provision, in this case, did not provide clear and unmistakable evidence that only the arbitrator could decide the issue of arbitrability,” wrote Justice Lucas, who authored the court of appeal’s decision. “Therefore, we must reverse the circuit court's order which held to the contrary.”