David Heller drove for Uber in Ontario. His standard form services agreement said disputes had to be resolved through arbitration in the Netherlands, with considerable fees payable before the process could begin. Heller sought to bring claims about worker classification and protections under Ontario employment standards law. Uber argued that the arbitration provision required the court proceeding to stop.
The Supreme Court of Canada considered the dispute in Uber Technologies Inc. v. Heller, 2020 SCC 16. The immediate issue wasn't whether every Uber driver is legally an employee. It was whether a contractual dispute resolution provision could be enforced when the cost and structure of that process made it effectively unavailable to the worker who had accepted the agreement.
The Court found the arbitration agreement unconscionable. There was a marked imbalance in bargaining power between the company offering a standard contract and the driver who had little opportunity to negotiate its terms. The bargain was also seriously unfair because the up front arbitration costs were disproportionate to the worker's expected earnings and prevented meaningful access to the chosen forum. The Supreme Court dismissed Uber's appeal, allowing the Ontario proceeding to continue.
The decision is important because an agreement can contain an arbitration clause that looks ordinary on paper yet operates as a practical barrier to bringing a claim. The legal analysis considers the circumstances in which the contract was made and whether its terms create an improvident result. The Court didn't say arbitration itself is improper in all workplace contracts.
For businesses engaging contractors or platform workers, dispute clauses deserve the same scrutiny as compensation and termination provisions. An elegant contract won't protect a company if its dispute process is inaccessible to the people bound by it. For workers, the case confirms that signing a standard contract doesn't always make every term enforceable.
Heller's actual employment status and any underlying wage entitlements were left for later determination. Confusing access to a hearing with success on the merits would overstate what the Supreme Court decided.
Source: Supreme Court of Canada, Uber Technologies Inc. v. Heller, 2020 SCC 16, https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/18406/index.do