Moffatt v. Air Canada — airline liable for its chatbot's wrong answer
What happened
In November 2022 Jake Moffatt asked Air Canada's website chatbot about bereavement fares after a family death. The chatbot said he could book a full-fare ticket and apply for the discount retroactively within 90 days. A separate page on the same website said the opposite. Air Canada refused the refund. Moffatt took the airline to British Columbia's Civil Resolution Tribunal.
The rule
Negligent misrepresentation. A business owes a duty of care to people relying on information on its website; the tribunal held that a chatbot is 'just a part of Air Canada's website' and rejected the airline's argument that the chatbot was a separate legal entity responsible for its own words.
Outcome
Decision 2024 BCCRT 149 (February 2024). Air Canada was ordered to pay C$812.02 in total: C$650.88 in damages (the fare difference) plus pre-judgment interest and tribunal fees. Small money, but the first widely reported ruling that a company answers for what its customer-facing AI says.
What this means for you
If your chatbot or AI assistant tells a customer something, you are bound by it as if a staff member had said it. Keep the bot's knowledge base in sync with your policies, log conversations, make it easy to reach a human, and never argue that 'the AI said it, not us'.
Laws involved
- PIPEDA (Canada)In forceCA-federal
- Utah AI Policy ActIn forceUS-UT
- EU AI ActIn forceEU
Sources
- Moffatt v. Air Canada, 2024 BCCRT 149 — CanLII ↗
- Moffatt v. Air Canada: A Misrepresentation by an AI Chatbot — McCarthy Tétrault ↗
- BC Tribunal Confirms Companies Remain Liable for Information Provided by AI Chatbot — American Bar Association ↗
Last reviewed Sep 25, 2026.