Sorting out the question of civil fault in a vehicle accident case can be a challenge even under the simplest of circumstances. When an accident involves a fatality and an Uber or other rideshare vehicle, the level of complexity rises. Add California’s peculiar system of pure comparative negligence in assigning fault, and you have a formula for a fatal accident case getting lost in legal limbo.
It is always prudent to seek counsel before pursuing an accident claim, but it’s downright critical when you’re trying to navigate the complexities of fault involving an Uber under California law. If you’re trying to make sense of the legal nightmare that may follow from losing a loved one in an Uber accident in California, you need to have a starting point. Here arethe basics you should know about fault as it applies to these civil cases that we increasingly see here at Pacific Attorney Group.
California’s Pure Comparative Negligence Standard
California’s negligence standards that apply to auto accident cases are fairly unusual compared to the rules in the rest of the United States. The big difference is that California allows parties to pursue damages from multiple defendants.
On some level, this makes complete sense. After all, few things in this world are trulyone person’s fault. For example, the suing party might have been partly responsible for an accident. Suppose the victim was 25% responsible based on their distracted driving. In a normal U.S. state, the defendant would then pay 75% of the damages. For thesake of using round numbers, assume the victim had suffered $100,000 in damages. The system would award the victim $75,000 because they were 25% liable for what happened.
Where it gets more complex in California is that the division of fault doesn’t stopat the two drivers. Theoretically, fault could attach to a third, fourth and even fifth defendant. Perhaps a mechanic was partly responsible for not doing proper work on one of the cars. In California, everyone who is found liable for contributing to an accident has to pay their assigned percentage of the fault.
Employer Liability
Normally, an employer is liable for damages involving their employees’ work on the job. For example, a trucking company carries insurance to cover damages involving its rigs and drivers. If someone suffers an accident involving one of the company’s trucks, the company is liable for its contribution to the incident and the driver’s contribution.
Contractor Liability
Naturally, you might assume this simplifies things when Uber is a party to a case. After all, the driver is working for Uber, right? Like many companies in the age of the gig economy, Uber tries to treat its drivers as independent contractors and not employees. Generally, liability involving independent contractors falls on the contractor rather than the company that contracted them.
Notably, Uber attempts to leverage this distinction to its advantage. The company enters into agreements with its drivers that say they acknowledge a waiver of the company’s liability. Likewise, the drivers are supposed to carry appropriate insurance. The problem with this arrangement is that lots of drivers don’t know that they need different coverage to apply to incidents involving passengers or other people’s vehicles. Also, many courts have questioned whether this is an acceptable arrangement.
Uber’s Liability
In 2020, California passed Assembly Bill 5. It is a law that resets employee classifications in the age of the gig economy. A three-part test determines whether someone is an employee or a contractor.
First, the contractor must be free from company control. In other words, they can go home and not face the threat of firing. Since Uber drivers can log off the company’s app at any given time once they’ve completed a run, the company does meet this test.
Second, the contractor has an independent business in their trade. This probably applies to Uber drivers because they could also drive for Lyft or even a food delivery service simultaneously.
The third requirement is the one that tends to be problematic for Uber. The work has to be outside of the company’s normal business. For example, a plumbing subcontractor doing work for a construction company usually isn’t an employee if the construction company doesn’t predominantly do plumbing. The problem for Uber is that driving is literally the entirety of their business. Understandably, judges have found that Uber is a potentially liable party because of this rule.
Notably, there are several ways Uber may be liable in an accident involving one of their drivers’ vehicles. These include:
- Failing to screen drivers. If Uber fails to do the most basic of background checks, it is likely liable. Minimally, the company must check whether a driver is legally licensed and has no history of driving, drinking or drug offenses.
- Retaining bad drivers. Suppose an Uber driver has already been involved in multiple accidents. Uber may be liable if the company fails to remove them from the app’s pool of drivers.
- Tech failures. One of the more obvious cases would be if the Uber app system negligently caused an accident. Imagine the app routed a driver directly into oncoming traffic. There is a strong case for Uber’s liability in that scenario.
- Incentivizing dangerous driving. Uber could also be liable if it offered incentives that encouraged reckless driving. Applying time pressures or offering bonuses for quick arrivals would open the company to fault.
- Failure of maintenance. Uber also needs to make sure that its drivers’ vehicles are safe. If the company didn’t properly document that a vehicle was regularly inspected for safety issues, Uber would likely be liable.
- Overloading. Uber should never overload a vehicle. If the app assigned a larger group to a vehicle than it could carry, the company may be liable.
Why Does This Matter to You?
If you’re pursuing an accident claim following a fatal incident, you have to bring your claim against the right defendants. Otherwise, the defendants are going to assert that someone else should be found at fault. Even if they are the right defendants, there is a good chance they’ll still try to point the finger at someone else.
There is also a statute of limitations, a rule that requires you to notify all the defendants in a case that you will be seeking damages. The statutory limit also says that you have to get the case moving within a specific timeframe. The timeframe is usually two years for cases involving personal injuries, a category that also includes wrongful deaths. The clock begins ticking on the statute of limitations on the day of the accident.
Unsurprisingly, Uber is the kind of large business that’s happy to let someone else foot the bill for a fatal accident. Uber includes this kind of language in every agreement with its drivers, regardless of how applicable it might be. In other words, you should expect Uber to put up a fight.
At the same time, a driver’s insurance policy may not have sufficient provisions to cover the damages in your case. This is particularly of concern in a fatal accident because the claim could be in the millions of dollars. If the Uber driver never updated their coverage to include ridesharing work, their policy may just not be big enough to cover all the damages. Consequently, your attorney will want to have the option to go after Uber to make up the gap and maximize the value of your claim.
Figuring Out Who’s at Fault for an Uber Accident
California’s legal framework makes an already difficult situation even more challenging than it would be in nearly any other state. You have to make sense of who might be at fault in a fatal Uber accident case before you bring your claim. Likewise, you will have to notify the defendants within a two-year timeframe which feels a lot shorter when you’re trying to build a case. Drivers, ridesharing companies and their insurers are likely to play the not-it game, too. Be prepared before you bring a fatal accident claim in a case involving Uber, Lyft or another rideshare business.
