WOW!!!: Rocket Wins Its Appeal– LowerMyBills.com’s Crazy Tiny Print Webform is Enforceable After All–Here’s What It Means for the Lead Generation Industry

Absolutely huge news for the lead generation industry today.

Rocket has WON its appeal over the enforceability of the LowerMyBill .com website flow. Plus the appellate court gave everyone a useful four question test to assess webform enforceability (proving Queenie’s Ten is solid gold.)

TCPAWorld readers will remember Rocket was previous in a world of hurt after a lower court found LMB’s form to be unenforceable– meaning Rocket was potentially liable for millions of robocalls made to consumers in reliance on the form.

The loss of LMB was thought to have been a major contributor to Rocket snapping up Redfin and Mr. Cooper in rapid succession shortly thereafter.

But now Rocket is enjoying a complete reversal in fortune–literally.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appels has reversed the lower court’s ruling and found the LMB form WAS enforceable after all– at least for purposes of enforcing an arbitration provision in the form under California law. (The case was decided in Michigan, but California law was applied due to a choice of law provision.)

The ruling in Dahdah v. Rocket Mortgage, LLC 2026 WL 194455 (Sixth Cir. Jan 26, 2026) contains a very nice discussion of online contract formation principles. The analysis is seemingly straightforward but it gets very tricky at the edges. But at bottom a website operator has the duty to “put users on notice of the terms for which they wish to bind consumers[.]”

The Dada court broke the issue down to four questions:

Question One: Did the website display the offer on an “uncluttered” page or on a page filled with items that will “draw the user’s attention away from” the proposal? Courts are more likely to find an offer conspicuous if a page uses a “simple, streamlined design” to convey it.

Question Two: Did the website operator place the proposed offer close to—or away from—the button that a user must click to signal the user’s acceptance of the proposal? The closer that the operator places the offer to the critical action button, the more conspicuous courts will find it.

Question Three: Did the website operator use a font size or color that would draw attention to the proposal? Courts are more
likely to find a proposal conspicuous if the operator uses a larger font or at least colored hyperlinks that draw attention to the
proposal despite a “small font” for its terms.

Question Four: Did the website operator and users engage in the kind of interaction that one would expect to include
contractual terms? If users would reasonably anticipate “some sort of continuing relationship” with an operator (such as when they sign up for an account), courts are more likely to find a proposal conspicuous because consumers would expect terms to govern the relationship.

Looking at these questions the appellate court concluded “Whether the LowerMyBills website made a reasonably conspicuous offer is a close question.” So LMB was living right on the edge!

But the court ultimately determined the website just passed muster:

1.  The proposal  followed a “simple design” that did not contain much clutter (other than a logo for Quicken Loans as the “Featured Provider”). In this respect, then, this page resembles the simple sign-up pages for Uber or Airbnb.  And it differs from Fluent’s webpages in Berman, which contained other eye-catching images and information.
2. Next, the “spatial and temporal coupling” of the proposal with the key buttons made it even more conspicuous. LowerMyBills placed the proposal “directly” “below the action button” on each of the pages. And it used a “dynamic scrolling function” in which these pages automatically scrolled down as users inputted information in the boxes. So users would always see the offer on the same screen as the action buttons.
3. LowerMyBills’ decision to use a very small font for its offer on the fourth and fifth pages provides Dahdah’s strongest counterargument. But that font size seems comparable to the offer on Uber’s sign-up screen, and… LowerMyBills also highlighted its Terms of Use with a hyperlinked “bright blue font” that contrasted sharply with the white background. And unlike Fluent, LowerMyBills did not hide the critical hyperlink using the same font color as the other text.
4. Lastly, although a close call, the offer arose in a context in which one would expect an “ongoing relationship” with
   LowerMyBills and its affiliate lenders rather than a one-off transaction. Dahdah may have visited
   LowerMyBills.com simply “to get the calculated results” of refinancing options,  but it is also true that
   LowerMyBills.com matches users with one or more lenders so that the lenders can contact users in the future about mortgage
   refinancing using the provided contact information. Reasonable mortgagors thus would expect a further relationship. And reasonable users also would expect that the free referral service comes with some contractual strings attached (most obviously, that they consent to receive the communications for which they are signing up).

That last line is PHENOMENAL for lead generators a comparative shopping websites. It creates–for the first time– a presumption in LAW that consumers know to expect “Strings attached” to free online services.

WOW.

What an incredible ruling.

We here at Troutman Amin, LLP will analyze this decision more fully and provide continued guidance to the industry in terms of how best to leverage it. But a few things remains clear:

1. Although this ruling was decided in the context of arbitration–and not express written consent, which MAY require a higher conspicuousness standard– this case will still weigh heavily in TCPA decisions impacting consent webflows;
2. So get yourself a copy of Queenie’s 10 because it was dead on here;
3. The court’s will be somewhat forgiving of small font on websites IF all the other core components are met;
4. At least in the Sixth Circuit (applying California law) website forms just got a lot easier to enforce;
5. Rocket’s book value probably just tripled– even though the wider market doesn’t understand that;
6. Reach out to Troutman Amin, LLP about how this may change your risk appetite in drafting forms.

Here to help!

Definitely something we will be breaking down in detail at Law Conference of Champions this year. A few great speakers are already signed up including Manny! Everybody is going to love this year’s SHARK TANK and TRUST ME when I say we have cool surprises coming. 🙂

You won’t want to miss out.

Chat soon.