Simoni v. United Airlines Holdings, Inc.
| Decision Date | 10 February 2022 |
| Docket Number | 21-cv-1267 |
| Parties | STEPHEN SIMONI, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated, Plaintiff, v. UNITED AIRLINES HOLDINGS, INC., UNITED AIRLINES, INC., and DOES 1 through 10, inclusive, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Plaintiff Stephen Simoni brings this class action lawsuit against United Airlines Holdings, Inc. (“UAH”), United Airlines, Inc. (“United”), and Does 1 through 10 (together, “United, ” or “Defendants”), alleging breach of contract. Before the Court is United's motion to dismiss [10]. For the reasons below, the motion [10] is granted in part and denied in part. In particular, as Simoni has agreed [see 14 at 3 n.2], Defendant UAH is dismissed from this lawsuit without prejudice; however, the motion is otherwise denied and Simoni may proceed with his single-count complaint at this time. The parties are directed to file no later than February 24, 2022, a joint status report that includes a proposed discovery plan.
United Airlines has a frequent flyer rewards program called MileagePlus, which allows the airline's customers to earn miles and use those miles to book future travel, including “award” flight tickets. [1-1 at ¶ 13.] On January 11, 2021, Simoni booked an “award” ticket through United's MileagePlus program to travel from San Francisco to Palm Springs a few days later, on January 16, 2021. [Id. at ¶ 18.] In booking his flight as an “award” ticket, Simoni was able to purchase his travel by using a combination of airline miles and cash. [Id.] Simoni received a “confirmatory, particularized” email from United that same day that included (i) his unique MileagePlus account number from which the award miles had been applied to the cost of his upcoming flight, (ii) the flight confirmation number, (iii) the dates, times, and airports for his departure and arrival flights, and (iv) instructions for how he could adjust his travel plans, which stated: “If you want to change, cancel or rebook your award flight, we'll waive the redeposit fee.” [Id.; see also id. at ¶ 13.]
Shortly after booking his travel, Simoni decided to cancel his flight ticket. [Id. at ¶ 20.] When Simoni proceeded to make the change to his itinerary, he was required to pay a $100 cancellation fee, and an additional $25 redeposit fee to have the frequent flier miles he had used to purchase the flight transferred back into his MileagePlus account. [Id.] According to the complaint, had Simoni opted not to pay the $25 redeposit fee, “United would have provided only a grossly inferior ‘flight credit' with multiple time and money restrictions on use thereof, ” rather than refunding his miles to his MileagePlus account. [Id.]
Simoni initiated this action on February 2, 2021, by filing a one-count complaint in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois. [See generally 1-1.] Plaintiff purports to represent a class of similarly situated individuals (“most likely many hundreds or thousands of consumers” [1-1 at ¶ 24]) and claims that United is liable to the class for breach of contract. Simoni contends that “United owed Plaintiff and the Class Members a contractual duty not to charge redeposit fees for cancellations of award tickets” [id. at ¶ 32], and thus breached that duty by imposing the $25 mileage redeposit fee on Simoni when he cancelled his flight. [Id. at ¶ 33.]
On February 5, 2021, United removed the case to this Court pursuant to the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (“CAFA”), see 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332(d), 1453(b). United filed the instant motion to dismiss [10] shortly thereafter.
Dismissal for failure to state a claim under Rule 12(b)(6) is proper “when the allegations in a complaint, however true, could not raise a claim of entitlement to relief.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 558 (2007). In reviewing a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), the Court accepts as true all of Plaintiffs' well-pleaded factual allegations and draws all reasonable inferences in Plaintiffs' favor. Killingsworth v. HSBC Bank Nevada, N.A., 507 F.3d 614, 618 (7th Cir. 2007). However, “[t]o survive a motion to dismiss, the well-pleaded facts of the complaint must allow the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct.” Langworthy v. Honeywell Life & Acc. Ins. Plan, 2009 WL 3464131, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 22, 2009) (citing McCauley v. City of Chicago, 671 F.3d 611, 616 (7th Cir. 2011)). Additionally, the Court “need not accept as true legal conclusions, or threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements.” Brooks v. Ross, 578 F.3d 574, 581 (7th Cir. 2009) (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). Nevertheless, a plausible claim may proceed, and “[t]he ‘plausibility determination is a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense.'” Munson v. Gaetz, 673 F.3d 630, 633 (7th Cir. 2012) (quoting McCauley, 671 F.3d at 616).
United argues that Simoni has failed to state a claim for breach of contract because he has not plausibly alleged that an agreement ever existed between the parties through which United agreed to waive Simoni's redeposit fees. It is manifest that for a plaintiff to state a breach of contract claim, he must plausibly allege the existence of a contract. See, e.g., Lagen v. United Cont'l Holdings, Inc., 774 F.3d 1124, 1127 (7th Cir. 2014) (). In other words, Simoni “must allege facts establishing that the parties exchanged an offer, an acceptance, and consideration.” Smoler v. Bd. of Educ. for W. Northfield Sch. Dist. #31, 524 F.Supp.3d 794, 812 (N.D. Ill. 2021). United argues that the complaint fails to establish any of these components.
United argues first that it never offered to waive Simoni's redeposit fees, because to the extent that it made any offer, that offer contained a temporal limitation. United points specifically to what it labels “conspicuous” hyperlinks in the email in question that “clearly stated that United's waiver of redeposit fees for cancelled award travel did not apply to trips that were cancelled within 30 days of departure.” [11 at 8.] According to United, “[t]he e-mail and the hyperlinks together set forth the terms and conditions of United's redeposit fee waiver policy for cancelled award travel.” [Id.]
In general, a district court is limited to the four corners of the complaint when deciding a motion to dismiss. See, e.g., Burke v. 401 N. Wabash Venture, LLC, 714 F.3d 501, 505 (7th Cir. 2013). An exception exists, however, “where a complaint or an attachment to the complaint expressly refers to another document, such as a contract, ” and in those cases, the Court “can consider the referenced contract.” DeJohn v. The .TV Corp. Int'l, 245 F.Supp.2d 913, 916 n.2 (N.D. Ill. 2003). Based on this principle, United argues, the Court may consider the information contained on the hyperlinked webpages, even though Simoni did not attach those pages to his complaint.
But there's a wrinkle in the Court's authority to apply that rule in this case, because the parties disagree as to whether the hyperlinked webpages are, in fact, components of the alleged contract. “In Illinois, as in many states, the law governing the formation of contracts on the Internet is still in the early stages of development.” Sgouros v. TransUnion Corp., 817 F.3d 1029, 1034 (7th Cir. 2016). “Generally, a party who signs a written contract is presumed to have notice of all of the contract's terms, ” id., but that concept becomes murkier in the context of agreements formed over the Internet. In determining whether an agreement has been formed over the Internet, the Seventh Circuit has explained that “we might ask whether the web pages presented to the consumer adequately communicate all the terms and conditions of the agreement, and whether the circumstances support the assumption that the [consumer] receives reasonable notice of those terms.” Id. As the court of appeals further explained, this analysis involved “a fact-intensive inquiry: we cannot presume that a person who clicks on a box that appears on a computer screen has notice of all contents not only of that page but of other content that requires further action (scrolling, following a link, etc.).” Id. at 1034-35.
Applying that approach here, the question becomes whether a reasonable person in Simoni's shoes would have realized that the purported offer to waive redeposit fees in the event of cancellation, as stated in the main body of the email, was subject to further terms and conditions set forth in the embedded hyperlinks. See Sgouros, 817 F.3d at 1035. As Sgouros indicates, United's argument would be much more compelling had it placed the fine print from the hyperlinks on which it now relies “next to an ‘I Accept' button that unambiguously pertains to that agreement.” Id. at 1036. As the court of appeals explained, “[t]his is not hard to accomplish ” id., and would have left no doubt that Simoni and others like him were aware of the consequences of cancelling their trips less than 30 days before their travel date. While it is unclear whether the Seventh Circuit would treat an “I Accept” button as a safe harbor, Simoni's task of stating a plausible claim would be a greater challenge had United followed this course. United maintains that, far from being “buried” terms, the hyperlinks in question were placed in close proximity to the terms...
To continue reading
Request your trial