By Ross Todd, From The Recorder
SAN FRANCISCO — A group of California cab companies has joined the growing list of plaintiffs to sue Uber Technologies Inc. over the company’s claim that it offers the “safest rides on the road.” The cab companies’ false advertising complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday by lawyers from Pearson, Simon & Warshaw and The Dolan Law Firm, comes after district attorneys in Los Angeles and San Francisco sued the transportation network company over its safety claims. At least three proposed class actions have also been filed on behalf of passengers targeting Uber’s safety measures.
Pearson Simon’s Bruce Simon said in a phone interview Wednesday that the lawsuit was the first to bring Lanham Act claims on behalf of cab companies against Uber related to safety claims.
“We’ve had ongoing relationships with cab companies over the years and we’ve had conversations about how Uber was affecting their business,” Simon said. “This got to the point they felt they couldn’t take it anymore.”
Simon said since the cab companies aren’t seeking to certify a class and they’re not subject to the arbitration clause Uber is likely to wield in lawsuits brought by passengers, their action could potentially proceed more quickly than the other private suits.
The 19 cab companies claim Uber put forth false and misleading advertisements regarding the safety of rides on its “UberX” platform, and that Uber has disparaged the safety of taxi rides on its website and in the media.
“This causes plaintiffs to lose significant amounts of revenue, including, but not limited to, through a decrease in the amount of leasing revenue they can receive for their taxi cabs, a decreased number of calls into dispatch, a reduced fleet of drivers, a reduced number of taxi cabs in service, a reduced number of shifts worked by drivers, and/or a devaluing of share prices,” the complaint asserts.
The cab companies claim they conduct more thorough driver background checks than Uber by requiring their drivers to submit fingerprints. The taxi companies also say they continuously track driving and criminal records, in contrast to Uber which only monitors driving violations, according to the complaint. The suit also claims Uber requires no driver training or written examinations, and its drivers’ vehicles are subject to much less stringent vehicle inspections and maintenance requirements than cabs.
“Uber suggests that people choose them because of convenience and lower cost. Part of the reason they sometimes offer a lower fare is because they don’t have to comply with the same rules,” Simon said.
Uber spokesperson, Eva Behrend, said in an emailed statement that lawsuit was “frivolous” and “simply without merit.” She said Uber’s driver screening includes county, federal and multi-state checks, and the rating system of its app “gives riders and drivers unprecedented transparency.”
“This lawsuit was filed by an industry that for decades has ignored the safety of riders and drivers—and that in San Francisco, allows up to two drug or alcohol offenses for drivers and only looks back five years into a driver’s background, with limited recourse for complaints and wrongdoings,” she said.
Wednesday’s lawsuit follows a rough month for Uber in the Northern District. In early March, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins indicated he was unlikely to toss claims that Uber drivers discriminated against blind passengers accompanied by service animals. Last week U.S. District Judge Edward Chen found that a jury should decide whether Uber’s drivers should be treated as employees or contractors under California law. Littler Mendelson represents the company in the discrimination case, while Morgan, Lewis & Bockius represents Uber in the employment suit.
Clarence Dyer & Cohen’s Nanci Clarence and Irell & Manella represent Uber in the previous safety-claim cases. Uber’s Behrend didn’t say which firm would defend the Lanham Act suit.
IMAGE: An Uber car drives down Market Street in San Francisco Jason Doiy / The Recorder
For more on this story go to: http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202721000328/California-Cab-Companies-Sue-Uber-Over-Safety-Claims#ixzz3UpbNaxuw

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Judges say Jury will need to decide if Uber, Lyft drivers are employees
By David Ruiz, From The Recorder
IMAGE: U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria, Northern District of California
Hillary Jones-Mixon / The Recorder
SAN FRANCISCO — Transportation network rivals Lyft and Uber are facing trial, after two federal judges refused to resolve whether the fleets of drivers who support their wildly successful business model should be treated as employees or independent contractors.
U.S. District Judges Vince Chhabria and Edward Chen of the Northern District of California separately decided on Wednesday that juries should decide whether Lyft and Uber have been misclassifying drivers as independent contractors.
Ruling in the Lyft case, Chhabria said the question has no clear answer.
“[B]ecause the numerous factors for deciding whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor point in decidedly different directions, a reasonable jury could go either way,” Chhabria wrote in his 19-page decision. “Accordingly, there must be a trial.”
Chhabria mused in his ruling that Lyft drivers seem like independent contractors in some respects; they can work as little or as much as they want, he noted. But in other ways, they seem more like employees. “Some drivers no doubt treat their work as a full-time job—their livelihood may depend solely or primarily on weekly payment from Lyft, even while they lack any power to negotiate their rate of pay,” he wrote.
In the Uber case, Chen called classification a mixed question of fact and law that must be resolved by a jury. He rejected Uber’s contention that its drivers serve passengers, not the company, and therefore can’t be considered employees.
“It’s obvious drivers perform a service for Uber because Uber simply would not be a viable business entity without its drivers,” he wrote.
Chhabria made a similar point, calling drivers work “central not tangential to Lyft’s business.”
Chhabria attacked a line of defense that many so-called sharing-economy companies have used to argue they are not bound by existing regulation: that the companies are simply platforms that connect service providers with wanting customers.
“Under this theory, Lyft drivers perform services only for their riders, while Lyft is an uninterested bystander of sorts, merely furnishing a platform that allows drivers and riders to connect, analogous perhaps to a company like eBay,” Chhabria said. “But that is obviously wrong.”
Both Lyft and Uber are fighting proposed class actions on behalf of drivers who claim they were denied certain benefits. California provides far greater protections to employees than it does to independent contractors, including minimum wage, workers’ compensation, meal and rest breaks and sometimes overtime pay.
Shannon Liss-Riordan of Lichten & Liss-Riordan, who represents plaintiffs in both the Lyft and Uber case, said Wednesday’s orders reaffirm that Lyft and Uber have to “play by the rules, just like everybody else.”
Lyft attorney Thomas McInerney, managing shareholder for Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, declined to comment, as did a a Lyft spokeswoman. Uber is represented by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.
Chhabria and Chen each rested their decisions in part on the 1989 U.S. Supreme Court decision in S. G. Borello & Sons v. Dept. of Industrial Relations, which set up several questions to determine a worker’s employment status. But both judges concluded a Borello analysis yielded no clear answer.
For example, the fact that Lyft and Uber can “terminate at will” is “strong evidence in support of an employment relationship.” However, independent contractors are also defined by their freedom to work their own hours and not be controlled by an immediate supervisor or manager, criteria that seem to fit most Lyft and Uber drivers.
Chhabria said California law hasn’t been updated to reflect modern models of working. “The jury in this case,” he wrote, “will be handed a square peg and asked to choose between two round holes.”
For more on this story go to: http://www.therecorder.com/id=1202720361157/Judges-Say-Jury-Will-Need-to-Decide-if-Uber-Lyft-Drivers-are-Employees#ixzz3UpeMNOtG