Geller v. Uber Technologies, Inc.

Plaintiff, as independent administrator of the estate of her deceased husband, filed a lawsuit alleging wrongful death, survival, and negligence claims based on res ipsa loquitur. The trial court granted defendant’s motion to compel arbitration in part, compelling arbitration of the estate’s survival claims, but denying it for the estate’s wrongful death claim and defendant appealed. The appellate court reversed, finding that the arbitration agreement entered into between the parties delegated the question of arbitrability to an arbitrator. The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the appellate court, finding that the arbitration agreement signed by plaintiff, who was a statutory beneficiary under the Wrongful Death Act, did not obligate the estate to arbitrate the arbitrability of the wrongful death claims because there was no clear and unmistakable evidence from which the court could conclude that the parties agreed to delegate arbitrability of the claims to an arbitrator where the agreement arose out of plaintiff’s own personal use of defendant’s services and not from the decedent’s use of the defendant’s services. (NEVILLE, HOLDER WHITE, CUNNINGHAM, ROCHFORD, O’BRIEN, and TAILOR, concurring)