Air Canada Held Liable for Chatbot's Incorrect Bereavement-Fare Policy
Canada's Civil Resolution Tribunal ruled Air Canada was liable for misinformation provided by its own customer-service chatbot — establishing that companies cannot disclaim responsibility for AI agent statements.
In February 2024, the British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal ruled in favour of customer Jake Moffatt, who had been told by Air Canada's website chatbot that he could apply for a retroactive bereavement-fare discount after his grandmother's death. The airline subsequently denied the discount, citing the actual policy that bereavement fares cannot be applied retroactively. Air Canada's defence argued that the chatbot was 'a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions.' Tribunal member Christopher Rivers explicitly rejected that argument, holding that the airline was responsible for all information on its website — chatbot output included — and awarded Moffatt CA$650 plus tribunal fees. The decision became a landmark cited in numerous AI-governance debates around corporate liability for LLM agent outputs.
Systems & Vendors Implicated
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What EvalGuard would have caught
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