General Mills Retracts "No Right to Sue" EULA Clause

Just a few days after General Mills changed its policies to declare that people who so much as "liked" their page on Facebook thereby waived their right to sue the company in favor of arbitration, the company has reversed itself: "The announcement resulted in huge backlash on social media, as well as from consumer groups. Legal experts expressed doubts it could ever be enforced. Hamline Law Professor David Schultz appeared on WCCO Sunday Morning. “When I first saw this earlier this week I said this is questionable at best from a legal point of view,” he said. “From a marketing point of view, it’s a dumb idea, too, but legally it didn’t rest on very sound grounds so it’s not a surprise that they are reversing it. The lawyers at General Mills should have known better.”

And again:

[ledow]

Just because someone puts something in a contract, and even if you "agree" to it by signing it (or even ACTUALLY agree with that line of the contract, which is something else entirely), it does NOT mean that it's automatically legally enforceable.

Some rights cannot be signed away. Ever. Even if you want to. If you've ever read "This does not affect your statutory rights", it's an acknowledgement of this (and, in fact, they don't even need to say that - because not saying it wouldn't affect those rights either!).

And "Can not sue" clauses generally don't exist in a vast majority of jurisdictions around the world. Because firstly, they are stupid. Secondly, they are unfair. And thirdly, they are not (generally) legally enforceable anyway.

If you ever thought otherwise, just replace whatever line with "I agree to be killed". Just because you sign it, just because you want it to happen, does NOT mean that the other party in the contract is able to do it to you.

It doesn't mean that nothing is enforceable, but stupid shit like this has nothing to do with the company "backing down"... they just asked a lawyer and realised that they couldn't actually enforce that clause anyway, and they risk large swathes of the same contract being revoked because of such unfair clauses that might come under similar scrutiny.

Don't be stupid and sign away your rights, but equally don't assume that you CAN sign away such rights either. Especially where "like" on Facebook means you can't sue... sorry, ABSOLUTE BOLLOCKS, and would be thrown out of any court.