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Businesses The Courts Transportation Technology

Uber Drivers Are Subject To Individual Arbitration, Says Court (cnet.com) 104

Posted by BeauHD from the limited-resources dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Uber won a courtroom victory on Wednesday when an appeals court ruled that drivers are subject to individual arbitration in a lawsuit over background checks, a ruling that might help the ride-hailing company fend off another costly class action lawsuit filed by its drivers. While the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that agreements signed by two former drivers for the service over background checks "clearly and unmistakably" require legal disputes be settled by a private arbiter, the reasoning may be applied to another class action lawsuit filed by drivers over the company's employment classifications. Uber agreed to settle that lawsuit earlier this year -- an agreement that was rejected by a federal judge last month. Arbitration is a method frequently used by companies for resolving legal conflicts outside of the court system. However, critics say that binding arbitration clauses give corporations an unfair advantage over employees and consumers who do not have the resources to challenge companies individually.
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Uber Drivers Are Subject To Individual Arbitration, Says Court More

Uber Drivers Are Subject To Individual Arbitration, Says Court

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  • employment classifications may not be limited by rules like this and it will not stop the states / IRS from taking them to court.

  • What happened to personal choice? (Score:3)

    by l2718 ( 514756 ) on Thursday September 08, 2016 @09:45AM (#52847967)

    As far as I know, drivers aren't forced (by operation of law or against the law) to drive for Uber. Anyone who drivers for Uber has freely signed the contract, judging that the benefits of driving for Uber outweighed the costs -- including all the obligations imposed by the contract such as the arbitration clause.

    If the drivers didn't like the terms of the contract, they had a simple remedy: they could have found a different job. We should respect their choice.

    More so if it is us (society at large and the legal system) who think that the drivers made a bad bargain, in that we believe giving up access to the courts isn't worth the money you get by driving for Uber. Then our solution is to speak out and convince the drivers to quit -- it's not to retroactively negate the free choice the drivers made.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:What happened to personal choice? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jittles ( 1613415 ) on Thursday September 08, 2016 @10:57AM (#52848425)

      As far as I know, drivers aren't forced (by operation of law or against the law) to drive for Uber

      While this may be the case, there are certain laws that Uber is required to comply with if it wishes to hire workers, whether they be contractors or actual employees. They may not, and in my opinion are not, following many of these laws and they should not be able to require private arbitration against drivers who are trying to force Uber to live up to their legal obligations as an employer. In fact, I believe that binding arbitration clauses are decidedly unfair and biased in favor of the company demanding the contract at the expense of the person who is forced to accept that contract if they choose to do business with that company. You may laugh and say that they can always do business with another company. While that is true - the fact of the matter is that if Uber gets away with forcing binding arbitration on those who should be classified as employees, then other companies will follow suit and you will not have any choice but to accept binding arbitration or start your own company.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by l2718 ( 514756 )

        ... there are certain laws that Uber is required to comply with if it wishes to hire workers, whether they be contractors or actual employees ... they should not be able to require private arbitration against drivers who are trying to force Uber to live up to their legal obligations as an employer ... I believe that binding arbitration clauses are decidedly unfair and biased in favor of the company demanding the contract at the expense of the person who is forced to accept that contract

        I don't doubt that y

        • ... there are certain laws that Uber is required to comply with if it wishes to hire workers, whether they be contractors or actual employees ... they should not be able to require private arbitration against drivers who are trying to force Uber to live up to their legal obligations as an employer ... I believe that binding arbitration clauses are decidedly unfair and biased in favor of the company demanding the contract at the expense of the person who is forced to accept that contract

          I don't doubt that you believe that the arbitration clause is unfair and biased -- but what you (or I) believe is irrelevant here, since it is the drivers who signed the contract. They evidently didn't believe the clause was unfair or biased -- after all they signed a the contract. We should respect their judgement.

          So you're suggesting that I should allow someone to be taken advantage of without speaking my mind or exerting whatever influence I may have over the matter? It is very naive to assume that all these Uber drivers entered into these agreements willfully and not out of some sort of coercion. Whether that coercion is financial or physical does not matter. Why would these drivers be requesting that a judge allow them to bypass these binding arbitration clauses if the drivers thought that they were fair to be

        • A contract doesn't override the law. The government decides what contract terms are enforceable in court. Also most of the drivers started driving before the arbitration clause was added. You may have noticed about a year ago that virtually every company you do business with as a consumer sent out a notice with an arbitration clause because they found a wording that the Supreme Court agreed with even though the Federal Arbitration Act was never intended to cover consumer and employee disputes, but only busi

        • Or they didn't bother to read an unknown number of pages of legalese and just signed it...
    • +1 this!

      To have a problem with "binding arbitration clauses" is really to say the people who sued should ALWAYS be able to pocket the money with no strings attached.

      If you really insist on settlement fees with no strings attached and the target of your lawsuit won't agree then you have to sue them.

      Some people are better prepared than others to file suit. Some people are better prepared to get out of bed in the morning. There's a difference between the government recognizing the right to file suit a

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Sometimes, you cannot sign away your rights, contract or no...

    • You miss the blindingly obvious answer. Strike the clause from the contract and submit. Funny thing about contract law, if you physically sign the contract you get to strike objectionable sections of the contract. Most employers, regardless of how often they're told to read everything, will just check to see if you signed it and then sign it themselves. We, as the prospective employee/contractor, have the ultimate power to force a change in how things get done. If you push back, most companies will cav

  • We all have a keen interest in the legal procedural minutiae of Uber drivers.

    • It's a much bigger issue than Uber. Binding arbitration basically privatizes the legal system, setting it's own rules and locking you out from join a group of people (class action) to get redress against an organization. Class action suits have been a very effective way of enforcing the rights of the group where an individual does not have the resources to take the matter to court.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Kohath ( 38547 )

        No class actions? So I won't get a coupon for $10 off an Uber ride while the lawyers take home millions? Say it ain't so!

      • Class actions have been "very effective" in enforcing the rights of a group? I'd say they've been most effectively at generating profit for the attorneys involved.
        As someone on the receiving end of quite a few class action judgements over the years, I'd say it's rare when the settlement resulted in the company making future changes that prevented the problem from happening again? They simply view these as costs of doing business.

        There were a lot of class action settlements involving banks and the way they

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by crbowman ( 7970 )

          Perhaps, but to use an example may of us here may remember: monitor size. I remember a time when everyone wanted big CRTs (I know ancient technology) and so manufacturers would produce big tubes and measure the tube and then put a plastic bezel around the tube shrinking the part of the tube you could see. Then they would advertise the tube size. There was no uniformity from brand to brand telling you how big the bezel was so the ads were misleading. There was a suit the manufacturers settled and I got a

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