Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Enforceability of Instagram’s forum selection clause designating the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California or San Mateo County courts for non-consumer disputes.
• Characterisation of the plaintiff’s Instagram activity as business or commercial use, triggering the “in all other cases” branch of clause 7.4.
• Determination of whether the Québec Small Claims Division has jurisdiction despite the contractual clause conferring exclusive jurisdiction on foreign courts.
• Reliance on prior Québec case law, including Gagnon c. Facebook Canada Ltd and Belley c. Facebook Inc. (Meta Platforms, Inc.), to uphold such clauses absent clear legislative override.
• Assessment of evidentiary sufficiency to show that the account was used for business purposes, supporting Meta’s preliminary objection.
• Consequence of declining jurisdiction: dismissal of the action without adjudicating the alleged wrongful closure of the Instagram account or the claimed CA$15,000 in damages.

Factual background
Luis Delev, the plaintiff, brought a claim before the Cour du Québec, Small Claims Division, in Montreal, seeking CA$15,000 in damages against Meta Platforms, Inc., the operator of Instagram. He alleged that Meta wrongfully and without valid reason closed his Instagram account. The dispute therefore arose from the operation and termination of a social media account and the resulting alleged financial or reputational harm to the account holder. The case was heard by the Honourable Daniel Dortélus, J.C.Q., with the hearing held on 10 February 2026 and judgment rendered on 11 February 2026. The matter proceeded in the civil chamber of the Small Claims Division, which is typically designed to offer simplified procedures and access to justice for lower-value claims.

The plaintiff’s claim and relief sought
Mr. Delev framed his action as a claim in damages for the closure of his Instagram account. He claimed CA$15,000, asserting that Meta had closed the account without justification, thereby causing him loss. The judgment does not detail the specific heads of damages (such as lost revenues, lost opportunities, or moral damages), because the court ultimately never reaches the merits. Instead, the focus of the decision is on whether the Québec court is competent to hear the matter at all in light of the contractual jurisdiction clause contained in Instagram’s terms of use. The plaintiff, as claimant, thus sought both recognition that the closure was wrongful and monetary compensation; however, the procedural posture of the case turned on Meta’s preliminary challenge to the court’s jurisdiction.

Instagram’s dispute resolution clause
Meta grounded its preliminary objection on clause 7.4 of Instagram’s terms of use, titled “How We Will Handle Disputes.” This clause distinguishes between consumers and all other users. For consumers, the clause provides that the laws of the country of residence apply and that claims may be brought before any competent court in that country having jurisdiction over the claim. For all other cases, the clause requires that the claim be resolved exclusively in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California or in a state court located in San Mateo County, California. It specifies that the user submits to the personal jurisdiction of these courts and that the laws of the State of California will govern the terms and the claim, without regard to conflict-of-laws provisions. The clause further reserves Meta’s option, in its sole discretion, to bring claims against a user in the user’s country of residence when the dispute relates to alleged abuse, interference, or unauthorized engagement with Meta’s products. In this case, Meta argued that the plaintiff’s use of Instagram fell into the non-consumer category, thereby triggering the “all other cases” part of clause 7.4 and conferring exclusive jurisdiction on the California courts.

Characterisation of the plaintiff’s use of Instagram
A central evidentiary point was whether the plaintiff used Instagram as a consumer or for business or commercial purposes. Meta’s amended contestation explicitly argued that, based on the plaintiff’s belatedly filed exhibits, the action related to his business or commercial use of the Instagram service. The judgment records that, on the evidence, there was sufficient proof that Mr. Delev used his Instagram account for business or commercial ends. This factual finding is critical because it determines which branch of clause 7.4 applies. Once the account is characterised as used for business or commercial purposes rather than purely personal or consumer purposes, the clause’s consumer-protective option to sue in the courts of the user’s residence no longer applies. Instead, the exclusive jurisdiction of the California courts is engaged, and the Québec Small Claims Court’s competence is thereby contractually displaced.

The court’s analysis of jurisdiction and prior case law
The judge classifies clause 7.4 as a clause compromissoire or clause of election of forum (clause d’élection de for), which had already been scrutinised in recent Québec case law. The judgment specifically references Gagnon c. Facebook Canada Ltd, 2024 QCCS 2384, where the Honourable Stéphane Lacoste of the Superior Court of Québec was seized with a similar declinatory exception raised by Meta. After canvassing the jurisprudence, Justice Lacoste held that the forum selection clause applied to that dispute and that courts should give full effect to such clauses, relying on the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in GreCon Dimter inc. c. J.R. Normand inc. In GreCon Dimter, the Supreme Court confirmed that a clear forum selection clause must generally be enforced unless the legislature has clearly expressed a contrary intention. The Gagnon decision, as summarised in this small claims judgment, underscores that a valid clause must be clear, precise, imperative and confer exclusive jurisdiction on the designated authority. The judge in Delev accepts that Instagram’s clause 7.4 meets these criteria and adopts the same analytical approach. The judgment also refers to Belley c. Facebook Inc. (Meta Platforms, Inc.), another case in which Québec courts declined jurisdiction in favour of the contractual forum selected in Meta’s terms. By invoking this line of authority, the court situates Delev within an emerging, consistent jurisprudence upholding Meta’s forum selection clauses for business users, absent a clear legislative provision overriding contractually chosen foreign forums.

Decision to decline jurisdiction and dismissal of the claim
On the basis of the contract, the evidence and the jurisprudence, the court concludes that Meta’s preliminary argument is well founded. Having found sufficient proof that Mr. Delev used his Instagram account for business or commercial purposes, the court holds that clause 7.4 applies and confers exclusive jurisdiction on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California or a state court in San Mateo County, California. Accordingly, the Cour du Québec, Small Claims Division, declines jurisdiction over the claim. Because jurisdiction is dispositive, the judge expressly states that there is no need to consider the underlying evidence relating to the alleged wrongful closure of the account or to assess the plaintiff’s claimed damages. The action is therefore dismissed at the preliminary stage. In its operative part, the judgment declares that the court declines jurisdiction to decide the plaintiff’s recourse against Meta, and it rejects the claim, ordering that each party bear its own judicial costs. As a result, Meta Platforms, Inc. emerges as the successful party, but no monetary amount—whether damages or costs—is awarded in its favour; the total monetary award in Meta’s favour is effectively zero, and no further quantification of costs or damages can be made beyond noting that each side must absorb its own expenses.