PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. IT AFFECTS YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS, INCLUDING YOUR RIGHT TO FILE A LAWSUIT IN COURT AND TO HAVE DISPUTES HEARD BY A JUDGE OR JURY.
16.1 Governing Law
These Terms and any dispute arising out of or related to these Terms or your use of our Site or Products shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Texas, United States (where Trailies maintains its principal place of business), without regard to its conflict of law principles, and by the Federal Arbitration Act as to Section 16.3. Nothing in these Terms deprives you of the protection of any mandatory, non-waivable consumer-protection law of the state, province, or country where you reside; where such a law grants you rights that cannot be varied by agreement, those rights prevail over any conflicting provision of these Terms.
16.2 Informal Resolution First - With Tolling
Before initiating any formal dispute resolution proceeding, you agree to first contact us at admin@trailies.com with a brief description of the dispute and attempt to resolve it informally for at least thirty (30) days. Most concerns are resolved quickly through this process. All statutes of limitations, contractual limitation periods (including the one-year period in Section 14), and filing deadlines are tolled (paused) from the day you send your informal-resolution notice until thirty (30) days after the informal process concludes. This process is a mutual obligation, and neither party may use it to prejudice the other's rights.
16.3 Binding Arbitration Agreement
If we cannot resolve a dispute informally, you and Trailies agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms, the Site, or any Products or services (collectively, "Disputes") shall be resolved exclusively through final and binding arbitration, rather than in court, except as provided in Sections 16.5 and 16.9.
Arbitration Rules & Hearing Location: The arbitration shall be administered by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") under its Consumer Arbitration Rules and its Consumer Due Process Protocol, available at www.adr.org or by calling 1-800-778-7879. If those rules conflict with this section, the AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules control. The arbitration shall be conducted, at your election, (a) by videoconference or telephone, (b) on the basis of written submissions only, or (c) in person in the county (or comparable locale) where you reside, or at another location that is reasonably convenient to you as determined under the AAA rules. We will never require you to travel to a hearing location that is not reasonably convenient to you. The arbitrator's decision shall be final and binding and may be entered as a judgment in any court of competent jurisdiction.
Delegation: The arbitrator (not a court) shall have exclusive authority to resolve any dispute about the interpretation, applicability, enforceability, or formation of this arbitration agreement, including any claim that it is void or voidable - except that the enforceability of the class action waiver in Section 16.4, and any dispute about this delegation provision itself, shall be decided by a court.
Arbitration Fees: If your claim is for $75,000 or less, Trailies will pay all AAA filing, administration, and arbitrator fees, unless the arbitrator finds that your claim or the relief sought is frivolous or brought for an improper purpose. If your claim exceeds $75,000, fees shall be allocated as provided by AAA rules.
Coordinated (Mass) Filings: If twenty-five (25) or more demands for arbitration are filed against Trailies raising similar claims and with the same or coordinated counsel, the parties agree that the AAA's Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules (or, if unavailable, the batching process in this paragraph) shall apply: the demands shall be resolved in batches of up to ten (10) cases per batch (randomly selected, with each side selecting five where feasible), with a single arbitrator per batch and a single set of administrative fees per batch. While a demand is awaiting its batch, all applicable limitation periods are tolled for that demand, and Trailies' fee obligations above apply per batch as cases proceed. Counsel for the batched claimants and Trailies shall meet and confer in good faith after each batch resolves to discuss global resolution. A court of competent jurisdiction shall have authority to enforce this paragraph and, if necessary, to enjoin the mass filing or administration of arbitrations in violation of it.
16.4 Class Action Waiver
YOU AND TRAILIES AGREE THAT EACH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST THE OTHER ONLY IN YOUR OR ITS INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person's claims (except in the batching process described in Section 16.3, which affects administration only and does not authorize class-wide relief) and may not preside over any form of class or representative proceeding. This waiver does not apply to claims that, under a non-waivable law, may proceed on a representative basis notwithstanding this agreement.
16.5 Small Claims Court Exception
Notwithstanding the above, either party may bring an individual action in small claims court for disputes within the court's jurisdictional limits, in the county where you reside or another mutually agreeable venue.
16.6 30-Day Opt-Out Right
You have the right to opt out of this arbitration agreement. To opt out, you must send written notice to admin@trailies.com within thirty (30) days of your first purchase from Trailies. Your notice must include: (a) your full name; (b) your mailing address; (c) your email address; (d) a clear statement that you wish to opt out of the arbitration agreement. If you opt out, all other provisions of these Terms will continue to apply. Opting out will not affect any other arbitration agreements you may have with us.
16.7 Judicial Forum for Non-Arbitrable Disputes
If the arbitration agreement is found unenforceable as to a particular claim or request for relief, or if you validly opt out, that claim shall be brought in the state or federal courts located in Dallas County, Texas, except that (a) you may instead bring the claim in the courts of the state or country where you reside if a non-waivable law gives you that right, and (b) small-claims matters proceed under Section 16.5. Each party waives any objection to venue in the forum determined under this section.
16.8 Severability of Arbitration Provision
If the class action waiver in Section 16.4 is found to be unenforceable as to a particular claim, then the entirety of this arbitration agreement shall be null and void as to that claim only, and the parties agree to litigate that claim in the courts specified in Section 16.7. If the AAA is unavailable or declines to administer an arbitration consistent with this section, the parties shall agree on another consumer-arbitration administrator, or a court shall appoint one; only if no administrator can conduct the arbitration consistent with this section shall the affected claim proceed in the courts specified in Section 16.7. All other provisions of these Terms shall remain in full force and effect.
16.9 Equitable Relief for Intellectual Property
Notwithstanding Section 16.3, either party may seek temporary, preliminary, or permanent injunctive or other equitable relief in a court of competent jurisdiction to prevent actual or threatened infringement, misappropriation, or violation of that party's intellectual property rights (including the license limits in Sections 4 and 10), without first engaging in informal resolution or arbitration. Seeking such relief does not waive either party's right to arbitrate all other aspects of the Dispute.
16.10 Changes to This Section
No amendment to this Section 16 applies to any Dispute that accrued, or of which either party had notice, before the effective date of the amendment. If we make a material change to this Section 16, we will notify you (by email or prominent notice on the Site), and you will have a fresh thirty (30) day period from the effective date of the change to opt out of arbitration as to future Disputes using the procedure in Section 16.6, even if you did not opt out previously. If you reject a change in that window, the prior version of this Section 16 continues to apply to you.