Facts
In November 2022, after his grandmother died, Jake Moffatt used the chatbot on Air Canada’s website to ask about bereavement fares. The chatbot told him he could apply for the reduced bereavement rate retroactively, within 90 days of the date his ticket was issued. The bereavement policy page linked in the same answer said that requests could not be made after travel. Relying on the chatbot, he bought tickets at the regular fare and applied within 90 days. Air Canada refused, and he brought a claim before the British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal.
Question
The tribunal had to decide whether Air Canada was responsible for inaccurate information given by its chatbot. Air Canada argued that it could not be held liable for the chatbot’s statements, in effect treating the chatbot as a separate entity responsible for its own actions, and suggested the customer should have checked other parts of the website. The claim was framed as negligent misrepresentation, which required a duty of care, an inaccurate representation, reasonable reliance and resulting loss.
Decision
The tribunal found for the claimant and rejected the idea that the chatbot was separate from the airline. The chatbot is part of Air Canada’s website, and it makes no difference whether information comes from a static page or a chatbot. Air Canada owed a duty of care to users of its website and did not take reasonable care to ensure its chatbot was accurate. The claimant’s reliance was reasonable even though the linked policy page stated the correct rule. The tribunal awarded C$650.88 in damages, and C$812.02 in total with pre-judgment interest and tribunal fees.
Why it matters
As a small-claims decision it has no binding precedential force, but it is frequently cited for the proposition that a business answers for what its customer-facing AI tells consumers. The tribunal applied ordinary principles of negligent misrepresentation and gave no weight to the argument that a chatbot is a separate actor. It also did not expect the customer to cross-check the chatbot’s answer against other pages of the same website.