Wayfair

A federal district court enforced Wayfair's web-based arbitration clause against a customer's proposed class action (Gorny v. Wayfair Inc., N.D. Ill., June 7, 2019, Judge Kennelly), relying in part on repeated site notices and a pre-order notice that buying meant agreeing to the terms. That design choice, once accepted by a court, can serve as a template other companies can point to for making their own clickwrap arbitration clauses harder to challenge — a single retailer's checkout page layout quietly raising the bar for what counts as 'you agreed to this' everywhere else.

• Severity
• Evidence tierUnassigned
• Claims confirmed
• Last verified2026-08-04

Case status. Private litigation; no sources are on file yet, so no legal tier is assigned.

Primary source. None recorded — Unverified - heuristic first draft.

Arbitration

A June 7, 2019 federal district court decision (Gorny v. Wayfair Inc., No. 1:18-cv-08259, N.D. Ill., Judge Matthew F. Kennelly) compelled arbitration of a proposed class action under Wayfair's web-based terms, rejecting the plaintiff's arguments that (1) his claims fell outside the clause's scope, (2) no binding agreement was ever formed by browsing/clicking, and (3) the clause didn't extend to Wayfair's parent company — a district-court ruling (not binding precedent) that nonetheless makes this clause court-tested, unlike many other companies' clauses in this tracker which remain untested in court. Coverage of the ruling says the court relied on the terms-of-use hyperlink appearing on the 13,000+ pages the plaintiff visited, notices that continuing to the site meant agreeing to the updated terms, and a pre-order notice that placing an order meant agreeing to the terms including the arbitration clause (a bold/same-size-font checkout-placement detail recorded in earlier drafts was not confirmed).

Contacts

Privacy contact. Not recorded.

Legal notice. PUBLIC COMPANY (W). Service route: c/o General Counsel / Corporate Secretary, Boston, Massachusetts — the corporate address on the SEC Form 10-K cover page is the official address of record. Confirm the exact street address on the current 10-K at sec.gov/edgar, and check the state-of-incorporation registered agent (usually Delaware; most large filers use The Corporation Trust Company or Corporation Service Company) via the Secretary of State business-entity search. A registered agent MUST accept service, which is why it is the reliable channel when a company publishes no privacy address.

Mailing address. Not recorded.