Yes, and more: for example, Amazon and FedEx are now at risk of being held legally responsible for egregious harms committed by Amazon (TBA) and FedEx Ground (RPS) delivery drivers, both of which are operated through subcontracting to (until now) insulate the brand from the annoying complications of workers and their actions. Their insistence of forcibly branding the contractors with their logo disguises that this has been happening for decades now from the public, but also opened a theoretical legal vulnerability — now proven by a judge: mandatory use of a brand by subcontractors can, by a reasonable interpretation, be expected to mandate liability resulting from its use.
The litmus test one can apply to test any given situation is, in my view, threefold:
1. Is the contractor authorized (or compelled) to display another’s brand more prominently than their own in some (or all) customer-facing circumstances?
(Every delivery truck operated by a third party in these manners typically has, somewhere on it, the actual operating business name that owns the physical truck. Is it in smaller fine print rather than being Most Prominent? These days, almost universally.)
2. Would a reasonable person consider the contractor’s work to have been presented as the brand’s work, rather than as the contracted business’s work?
(Raise your hand if you can name from memory the full name of an Uber driver that you have no personal connection to, or of an Amazon or FedEx Ground contracted last-mile business, that you have no personal or professional connection to other than their last-mile delivery of you and/or your possessions.)
3. Was the harm done sufficiently egregious that the brand’s licensor should be held jointly (or singly) liable for actions that occurred under their brand’s name?
(‘I didn’t get breadsticks with my meal’ does not expose Olive Garden’s brand owner to liability; one sues the franchisee directly and receives an outcome as usual. ‘I was teleported into a nether dimension through the kitchen doorway by the waiter and Olive Garden Corporate only offered me a free meal coupon in compensation’ would likely expose Olive Garden’s brand owner to liability: the harm is egregious enough that the brand owner is likely to be forced to pay out some of the revenues from licensing the brand as recompense.)
Notably, this is where classical restaurant franchises already provide prior art: McDonalds could not insulate itself from legal liability by claiming that the Hot Coffee location was operated by a contractor (which I can reasonably assume they tried and failed to claim, but have not yet researched). Sufficiently egregious harm was committed that piercing the contracting veil was clearly deemed appropriate. B2B/IC relationships are not a vibranium shield against liability. One can franchise every driver for each trip individually like Uber if it makes the business feel safer, but with brand licensees comes brand liabilities.
(Ironically: I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
The driver was acting on behalf of Uber and was found to have acted in a negligent manner. Whose fault was this, if not Uber’s? If not $40M, what should this young woman’s life be valued at?
The driver's fault. Is there any evidence it was Uber's policies or actions that caused this?
The US government values a statistical life at anywhere from $7 to $12M. Is there any evidence that this woman's lifetime earnings would've exceeded that? If it's a "feels" argument, why not $80M or $200M?
> The US government values a statistical life at anywhere from $7 to $12M. Is there any evidence that this woman's lifetime earnings would've exceeded that?
Thats not what that means. "... when conducting a benefit-cost analysis of new environmental policies, the Agency uses estimates of how much people are willing to pay for small reductions in their risks of dying from adverse health conditions that may be caused by environmental pollution. [...] these estimates of willingness to pay for small reductions in mortality risks are often referred to as the "value of a statistical life.”[0]
> Is there any evidence it was Uber's policies or actions that caused this?
The arbitrator/judge believed there was enough that the company was legally responsible for the conduct and issued a fine to the company for that failure of responsibility to be paid to the parents -- not because he decided that was how much she was worth
That's about the closest value you'll find to what human life is economically valued at. Do you have an alternate measure that is grounded in anything?
It's an economic measure for what should be an economic question. Taking the statistical value of a human life as a baseline feels pretty fair, and adjusting it upwards for special circumstances seems reasonable.
Are you arguing that because she was a nice person, she should be worth more? If she was a mean person, should she be worth less?
A) If someone acting on behalf of a company does something bad, the company is at fault.
B) Jury is going to Jury. I imagine Uber might offer to settle at a fraction of that for an immediate payout versus dragging it out with appeals to lower the amount etc. The family might take a smaller sum immediately, rather than an unknown sum years later.
Uber drivers broadly are considered independent contractors. The driver as an individual stopped the car and forced them out, because they were puking in his private vehicle. It wasn't the Uber app saying stop here and get out/force them out, to my knowledge.
Yup. Instances like this, the Clancy trial, and others really highlight the flaws in our jury system when considering the complexities of the modern world/legal system.
Uber should present itself differently, then, to users and should clearly warn them that they may be subject to capricious and potentially negligent actions by those with whom it contracts to drive. I suspect that the average user doesn’t make a distinction between Uber and driver, and possibly assume that drivers are trained to act in a safe manner.
When you hail a regular taxi from Mike's Yellow Taxi, do you think you are subject to the "capricious and potentially negligent actions" of that driver, without being given a waiver to sign?
Do you assume they have any additional training beyond a "for hire" license, and do you expect that Mike's Yellow Taxi has trained them to act in a safe manner?
> I suspect that the average user doesn’t make a distinction between Uber and driver, and possibly assume that drivers are trained to act in a safe manner.
This seems like a very surprising point of what happened here, sure, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a $40 million award by a jury, but that’s kind of unusual from an arbitration judge isn’t it? The whole reason companies mandate arbitration in their EULAs (or equivalent) is so the can avoid 40 million judgments.
It's Uber forcing the matter into arbitration: "By agreeing to these Terms, you agree that you are required to resolve any claim and/or lawsuit that you may have against Uber on an individual basis in binding arbitration as set forth in this Arbitration Agreement..."
There's a huge legal distinction there, and it affects taxes, liability, etc. It's distinct from the lay understanding of "working for Uber".
If someone is doing a Doordash delivery, runs a red light and hits someone, is it Doordash's fault? If Doordash has a policy encouraging running red lights, sure; but if it's just because they as an individual made a bad decision, Doordash shouldn't be liable.
The legal system should assign blame to the guilty, not encourage hunting for a tenuous connection to whoever has the deepest pockets.
Except that settled law generally doesn't apply to independent contractors, absent specific exceptions, which I can't tell apply from this poorly written news article.
Except the distinction also applies in tort law, which you apparently missed.
I'm not arguing in defense of Uber, but to point out how ridiculous this legal jackpot is in the face of established law. Modern society seems to have thrown out any semblance of justice, fairness, and consistency in favor of who's got the best sob story or has the right skin color/ethnic group/income level/ political connections for that particular venue.
The judge “concluding the company is legally responsible for the conduct of its driver”.
I’m not a layer, but doesn’t that open up a precedent where others could be more willing sue Uber now for damages caused by their driver?
Good. Companies shouldn't be able to get out of having good public behavior just by not having employees
Right? Nobody should be responsible for their own actions, if there's somebody with deeper pockets to sue.
The driver is also liable.
Uber is liable here because they employed the driver.
Yes, and more: for example, Amazon and FedEx are now at risk of being held legally responsible for egregious harms committed by Amazon (TBA) and FedEx Ground (RPS) delivery drivers, both of which are operated through subcontracting to (until now) insulate the brand from the annoying complications of workers and their actions. Their insistence of forcibly branding the contractors with their logo disguises that this has been happening for decades now from the public, but also opened a theoretical legal vulnerability — now proven by a judge: mandatory use of a brand by subcontractors can, by a reasonable interpretation, be expected to mandate liability resulting from its use.
The litmus test one can apply to test any given situation is, in my view, threefold:
1. Is the contractor authorized (or compelled) to display another’s brand more prominently than their own in some (or all) customer-facing circumstances?
(Every delivery truck operated by a third party in these manners typically has, somewhere on it, the actual operating business name that owns the physical truck. Is it in smaller fine print rather than being Most Prominent? These days, almost universally.)
2. Would a reasonable person consider the contractor’s work to have been presented as the brand’s work, rather than as the contracted business’s work?
(Raise your hand if you can name from memory the full name of an Uber driver that you have no personal connection to, or of an Amazon or FedEx Ground contracted last-mile business, that you have no personal or professional connection to other than their last-mile delivery of you and/or your possessions.)
3. Was the harm done sufficiently egregious that the brand’s licensor should be held jointly (or singly) liable for actions that occurred under their brand’s name?
(‘I didn’t get breadsticks with my meal’ does not expose Olive Garden’s brand owner to liability; one sues the franchisee directly and receives an outcome as usual. ‘I was teleported into a nether dimension through the kitchen doorway by the waiter and Olive Garden Corporate only offered me a free meal coupon in compensation’ would likely expose Olive Garden’s brand owner to liability: the harm is egregious enough that the brand owner is likely to be forced to pay out some of the revenues from licensing the brand as recompense.)
Notably, this is where classical restaurant franchises already provide prior art: McDonalds could not insulate itself from legal liability by claiming that the Hot Coffee location was operated by a contractor (which I can reasonably assume they tried and failed to claim, but have not yet researched). Sufficiently egregious harm was committed that piercing the contracting veil was clearly deemed appropriate. B2B/IC relationships are not a vibranium shield against liability. One can franchise every driver for each trip individually like Uber if it makes the business feel safer, but with brand licensees comes brand liabilities.
(Ironically: I am not your lawyer, this is not legal advice.)
[dead]
Wild that they think this is A) Uber's fault or B) worth $40M.
The driver was acting on behalf of Uber and was found to have acted in a negligent manner. Whose fault was this, if not Uber’s? If not $40M, what should this young woman’s life be valued at?
The driver's fault. Is there any evidence it was Uber's policies or actions that caused this?
The US government values a statistical life at anywhere from $7 to $12M. Is there any evidence that this woman's lifetime earnings would've exceeded that? If it's a "feels" argument, why not $80M or $200M?
> The US government values a statistical life at anywhere from $7 to $12M. Is there any evidence that this woman's lifetime earnings would've exceeded that?
Thats not what that means. "... when conducting a benefit-cost analysis of new environmental policies, the Agency uses estimates of how much people are willing to pay for small reductions in their risks of dying from adverse health conditions that may be caused by environmental pollution. [...] these estimates of willingness to pay for small reductions in mortality risks are often referred to as the "value of a statistical life.”[0]
> Is there any evidence it was Uber's policies or actions that caused this?
The arbitrator/judge believed there was enough that the company was legally responsible for the conduct and issued a fine to the company for that failure of responsibility to be paid to the parents -- not because he decided that was how much she was worth
[0] https://www.epa.gov/environmental-economics/mortality-risk-v...
That's about the closest value you'll find to what human life is economically valued at. Do you have an alternate measure that is grounded in anything?
Lifetime earnings? That is a very poor measure of a person's life.
It's an economic measure for what should be an economic question. Taking the statistical value of a human life as a baseline feels pretty fair, and adjusting it upwards for special circumstances seems reasonable.
Are you arguing that because she was a nice person, she should be worth more? If she was a mean person, should she be worth less?
That's what happens when you live in a company, not a country.
As compared to your implied view where any amount of money can appear from thin air, and law should be dictated exclusively by feelings?
A) If someone acting on behalf of a company does something bad, the company is at fault.
B) Jury is going to Jury. I imagine Uber might offer to settle at a fraction of that for an immediate payout versus dragging it out with appeals to lower the amount etc. The family might take a smaller sum immediately, rather than an unknown sum years later.
Uber drivers broadly are considered independent contractors. The driver as an individual stopped the car and forced them out, because they were puking in his private vehicle. It wasn't the Uber app saying stop here and get out/force them out, to my knowledge.
Yup. Instances like this, the Clancy trial, and others really highlight the flaws in our jury system when considering the complexities of the modern world/legal system.
Uber should present itself differently, then, to users and should clearly warn them that they may be subject to capricious and potentially negligent actions by those with whom it contracts to drive. I suspect that the average user doesn’t make a distinction between Uber and driver, and possibly assume that drivers are trained to act in a safe manner.
When you hail a regular taxi from Mike's Yellow Taxi, do you think you are subject to the "capricious and potentially negligent actions" of that driver, without being given a waiver to sign?
Do you assume they have any additional training beyond a "for hire" license, and do you expect that Mike's Yellow Taxi has trained them to act in a safe manner?
> I suspect that the average user doesn’t make a distinction between Uber and driver, and possibly assume that drivers are trained to act in a safe manner.
Are you for real?
As the article noted, this was not a jury trial, this was decided by an arbitration judge.
This seems like a very surprising point of what happened here, sure, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a $40 million award by a jury, but that’s kind of unusual from an arbitration judge isn’t it? The whole reason companies mandate arbitration in their EULAs (or equivalent) is so the can avoid 40 million judgments.
Arbitrators going to arbitrate then. There's a reason why you want to settle before jury verdicts and opt of arbitration whenever possible.
It's Uber forcing the matter into arbitration: "By agreeing to these Terms, you agree that you are required to resolve any claim and/or lawsuit that you may have against Uber on an individual basis in binding arbitration as set forth in this Arbitration Agreement..."
> Uber drivers broadly are considered independent contractors
I don't think that should really matter when you're engaging in activities that are "on duty"
The driver was acting as a representative of Uber. They were on a job for Uber.
There's a huge legal distinction there, and it affects taxes, liability, etc. It's distinct from the lay understanding of "working for Uber".
If someone is doing a Doordash delivery, runs a red light and hits someone, is it Doordash's fault? If Doordash has a policy encouraging running red lights, sure; but if it's just because they as an individual made a bad decision, Doordash shouldn't be liable.
The legal system should assign blame to the guilty, not encourage hunting for a tenuous connection to whoever has the deepest pockets.
If someone is doing a Doordash delivery, runs a red light and hits someone, is it Doordash's fault?
Yes. This is settled law dude. It's a form of vicarious liability and had been around for a very long time.
Except that settled law generally doesn't apply to independent contractors, absent specific exceptions, which I can't tell apply from this poorly written news article.
The distinction is primarily for tax purposes.
Companies are responsible for the actions of independent contractors working for the company. This has been the law for...decades...
Why are you trying so hard to defend a multibillion dollar corporation?
Except the distinction also applies in tort law, which you apparently missed.
I'm not arguing in defense of Uber, but to point out how ridiculous this legal jackpot is in the face of established law. Modern society seems to have thrown out any semblance of justice, fairness, and consistency in favor of who's got the best sob story or has the right skin color/ethnic group/income level/ political connections for that particular venue.