If your company is involved in selling products or services to consumers in New Jersey over the web or through mobile apps, you’ll want to read this client alert.
In what amounts to a feeding frenzy, plaintiffs’ lawyers are working overtime bringing class action suits against e-commerce companies, alleging that their online terms and conditions violate New Jersey’s unusual Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act (“TCCWNA”). Some of the online retailers to have been sued include Victoria’s Secret, Bed Bath & Beyond and TOYS ‘R’ US, with more suits being filed every day.
Unlike most consumer protection laws, the TCCWNA focuses specifically on the contractual terms governing certain transactions with consumers, imposing limitations on such terms even if such contractual terms are governed by the law of a state other than New Jersey—creating a potential gotcha for e-tailers who are based outside of New Jersey and who traditionally have their online terms and conditions reviewed only by lawyers admitted to practice in the state whose laws govern such terms and conditions.
Although the TCCWNA was enacted in 1981, it has only recently achieved notoriety, as more and more plaintiffs’ lawyers have embraced the statute due to its broad scope and its statutory penalty of not less than $100 per violation without the need to prove actual harm.
Read our client alert.