Hello from the road!

So contract law generally requires a party to manifest their assent to the terms of any agreement.

That means while you cannot get away with saying “I didnt read the contract I signed” you generally can get away with “I didn’t sign the contract.” haha.

In Thompson v. Brew Culture, 2025 WL 2198616 (S.D. Miss Aug. 1, 2025), however, the court enforced an arbitration clause in a contract that the plaintiff agreed to, if at all, only by failing to respond to a text message.

In Thompson the plaintiff signed up for a coffee shop rewards text program to get a cheaper cup of joe. She contends– and the record apparently supports the fact that–she was never told the text program included an arbitration agreement before she provided her number.

Only after she provided her number did she receive a text message with a hyperlink containing the terms of the promotion. Those terms included an arbitration provision.

Thompson sued the coffee shop for TCPA violations and the coffee shop moved to compel arbitration. Thompson opposed arguing: i) the arbitration clause didn’t even cover the coffee shop (the court did not address this argument in its opinion); and ii) she never knew about the clause until after she provided the number– which was the only action demonstrating assent.

While these are pretty strong arguments the court granted the motion concluding that Plaintiff had accepted the arbitration provision by failing to reply “stop” to the message campaign. In the court’s view he Plaintiff had the opportunity to reject the arbitration provision upon learning of its existence by simply saying “stop.” By failing to do so she agreed to the terms.

Interesting, no?

Now I can’t say the court got this wrong, but this is certainly not a result you see everyday.

Much better practice to advise consumers of all terms and conditions BEFORE you send a text message. 

Still, this case is a good reminder that consumers do owe some responsibility when it comes to interacting with SMS messages with common sense– let’s hope this trend continues as the onslaught of optout TCPA cases continues to crash the shores of TCPAWorld!