Judicial notice serves the salutary purpose of saving litigation time and expense. It applies in situations where one party wants to establish a fact that’s not subject to reasonable dispute (e.g. Sacramento is the capital of California, for instance). Judicial notice’s effect is that the party doesn’t have to endure the time and expense of calling a witness to testify or to marshal cumbersome documents to prove the generally known fact.
The rule is codified at Federal Rule of Evidence (and Illinois Rule of Evidence) 201. Van Tassell v. United Marketing Group, LLC, 795 F.Supp.2d 770 (N.D.Ill. 2011) is a fairly recent case application of judicial notice in the context of a class action consumer fraud action versus various on-line vendors for unapproved credit card charges.
In addition to its clear judicial notice illustration, the case also has value for its discussion of the key factors governing on-line contracts that contain hard-to-find alternative dispute provisions.
Here’s some key judicial notice points, gleaned from the case (and others like it):
– Under FRE 201, a court may take judicial notice of an adjudicative fact that is not subject to reasonable dispute;
– An adjudicative fact is one that applies specifically to the parties in a specific case (as opposed to “legislative facts” which involve more general facts that could apply across the board to any situation);
– A fact is not subject to reasonable dispute where (1) it is generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court; or (2) is capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy can’t reasonably be questioned.
One of the on-line vendor defendants moved to dismiss the complaint and attached screenshots of on-line enrollment forms, which contained pro-merchant disclaimer language. The defendant asked the court to take judicial notice of the enrollment pages since they were printed off the Internet.
But the court refused to take judicial notice of the Web pages. In their response to the motion, the plaintiffs filed affidavits stating they never viewed the enrollment pages. They (the plaintiffs) also didn’t refer to the enrollment pages in their Complaint. As a result, the Web enrollment pages weren’t properly before the court on a motion to dismiss since on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a court typically only considers the face of a complaint and any documents “central” to a complaint.
Next, the court addressed whether the various on-line contract’s arbitration provisions were enforceable against the consumer plaintiffs on an on-line merchant defendant’s motion to compel arbitration.
Cyberspace contracts don’t change the elemental rules of contract formation: a contract requires a meeting of the minds and a manifestation of mutual assent. Two common Internet contracts are clickwrap agreements and browsewrap agreements. In the former, the webpage user must take affirmative steps to accept on-line contract terms; usually by clicking “accept” or checking an “I agree” box. With a browsewrap contract, though, no action needs to be taken to “accept” the on-line vendor’s contract terms. Using the site equates to accepting the terms.
The contract here involved a browsewrap contract and so was subjected to closer court scrutiny. Since the arbitration provision was couched in the site’s “Conditions of Use” section which could only be accessed via a multi-step process, the court found the provision wasn’t prominent enough to be enforced. As a result, the court denied the merchant’s motion to compel arbitration. (pp. 779-780, 789-791).
Take-aways:
1/ The case provides an interesting applications of judicial notice to computerized context. While this court didn’t take judicial notice, I’ve found it to be an economical time-saving device as it eliminates the need to go through the cumbersome exercise of gathering evidence on issues for which there’s really no room for debate;
2/ Arbitration provisions buried in a maze of fine print or that can only be located through a tedious, multi-step process won’t be enforced;
3/ Browsewrap contracts that result in a user’s passive acceptance of contract terms are more stringently construed by a court than is a clickwrap contract.
