In a corporate statement on Thursday, Airbnb said: "Trust and safety are Airbnb's highest priorities and as such the improved safety processes are being implemented immediately . . ."
A few legal (and other) observations:
1. An Airbnb guest has committed serious property crimes against an Airbnb host, causing not only significant financial loss to the host but also potentially severe emotional trauma.
2. As a contract matter, the Airbnb terms tell that host that the company assumes no legal responsibility for anything that might happen in her interactions with that guest. Contract disclaimers of this type are generally legally valid and enforceable so as to limit company liability.
3. That said, the law will look at the overall relationships between the parties and will not necessarily limit liability when those relationships give rise to legal duties from one party to another beyond those defined by contract. In particular, if a company materially misleads those who use its services, or if a company assumes an implied duty based on its conduct or statements in a transaction, or if any other basis exists by which the law might define a legal duty that, if breached, gives rise to liability, then liability can exist entirely independent of contract. In such a case, the contract disclaimers, though they might limit liability for any express breach of the contract itself, do not limit the legal claims of a victim of a breach of the duties that might exist independently of the contract.
4. The victim of the crime here, in her blog post, very pointedly mentioned her view on this issue when she said: "By hindering my ability to research the person who will rent my home, there is an implication that Airbnb.com has already done the research for me"; and then added that the friendly, community-based site "creates a reasonable expectation that some basic screening of its users has occurred" (my emphasis). Whether intended to or not, the key phrases highlighted in these quotes suggest that the victim here likely sees Airbnb as having violated legal duties owed to her and for which she believes it owes her compensation. In essence, the legal position here would amount to saying (and these are obviously my words and not those of the victim, as I have no idea what her actual position on this is), "I don't care what your stupid contract disclaimers say; you misled me into believing that this was safe and you will make me whole for my harm suffered when I relied on you."
5. Under law, the "make me whole" part will vary depending on the nature of the breach. If it is a contract breach, then it normally means compensating the victim of a breach for either out-of-pocket losses or for the benefit of a bargain, which in this case would mean for the direct financial damage to property. But under tort theories, for instance, the idea of making a victim whole could easily mean compensating her for emotional trauma and the like. In the one case, the number might then be in, say, the $50,000 range while, in the other, it might be, say, $5,000,000.
6. I have no idea about the facts here (and indeed have been distressed to watch the HN family tear into each other over this issue) but, logically, it might be that offers of genuine compensation have been made by the company here (e.g., $50K or $100K or whatever) and equally sincere rejections of such offers have occurred because the victim might be using an entirely different measure of what it takes to make her whole (meaning that a much larger number might be expected to compensate for the trauma involved). This is speculation on my part but it is not illogical to assume this might be happening. It also might explain why discussions over this issue remain "in flux," as noted in the quote from this article.
7. Airbnb has a great business model, and it is one that will survive this incident and indeed help improve people's lives. But it needs to set up stronger procedures to ensure that people understand what they are getting into when they use its services and in helping to minimize the risks to the extent practicable for a company facilitating (but not assuming legal responsibility) for any given transaction. This is no small challenge because the procedures must be both meaningful and cost-effective for the company to implement in order to achieve its business goals. The second quote from the article above confirms that they are trying to do just that. I wish them well in the effort. Based on what pg has said, I would assume these are great founders and I for one am ready to continue to wish them well in their very promising venture while hoping that they have learned some serious lessons from the apparent mishandling of this episode.
8. As for the victim, EJ, anyone who has experienced serious trauma (as many of us have at one point or other in our lives) can attest that it is impossible for words to capture what this means: not just the pain but the persistence of it all, the fact that it does not just go away, that money can help at the margins only, the hopeless sense of feeling violated - all this and more makes us all want to see her get past this with some sense of being restored. That takes time and a lot of slow healing and we can only wish her the best in her path to recovery. It will help a lot if the company does the right thing but that is not an easy thing to work out - it too will take some time.