A federal district court in Delaware granted a credit card issuer's motion for reconsideration and ordered dismissal in favor of arbitration because the card issuer cleared up any ambiguity over mismatching account numbers.

In Kelly v. MBNA America Bank, No. CIV.A. 06-228-JJF, 2007 WL 4233671 (D. Del. Nov. 29, 2007), Kelly, an MBNA cardholder, sued MBNA for unfair banking, unfair billing, discrimination, and breach of contract. In response, MBNA moved for dismissal on various grounds, including an obligation to arbitrate those claims.

Initially, the Court denied the motion for dismissal because of ambiguity as to whether some of the accounts were subject to an arbitration agreement. The ambiguity arose from mismatching account numbers. MBNA later moved for reconsideration based on an affidavit establishing that there were three different account numbers for each account, thus resolving any ambiguity.

The Court granted MBNA's motion for reconsideration and dismissed the claims, holding that the MBNA arbitration clause was valid and that Kelly's claims were subject to arbitration. More specifically, the Court found that the parties had entered into a valid arbitration agreement because Kelly did not exercise his right to opt out of the agreement.

In reaching its holding, the Court explained that Kelly did not opt out of the arbitration agreement by filing grievances with the U.S. Comptroller of Currency and the FTC because those actions did not follow the timeline or procedure for opting out the arbitration agreement.