No idea how you can hold a company liable for the crimes committed by employees, regardless of how awful those crimes might be. I assume this will get overturned.
The question here was whether Uber could claim the drivers were not, in fact, employees.
(edit: A commenter correctly explains that no employee relationship is necessarily required; I should have stated that this was one part of Uber's defense, in addition to the driver having agreed not to assault riders and having undergone a safety screening)
Do you think Uber instructed their drivers to rape people?
According to the article you linked to, a similar case was already tried in 1838, when a boy fell off a wagon, and the master was not guilty of the behaviour of the wagon driver.
The article lists a few reasons why. There were some ("some" meaning "thousands of pages", per the article) documents from the company
>....including some showing that Uber had flagged her ride as a higher risk for a serious safety incident moments before she was picked up. Uber never warned her, with an executive testifying that it would have been “impractical” to do so.
as well as some
>...suggesting that Uber resisted introducing safety features such as in-car cameras because it believed these measures would slow corporate growth.
I would probably have not been included on the jury because I think uber is run by some of the biggest scumbags in the corporate world but if the article is to be believed it's not an unreasonable verdict unless you think no company should be liable for anything that results from their choices and actions.
I mean, it’s not quite that simple, is it? Did they do everything they could to make drivers and passengers safe? Or did they put profits over people’s safety?
From the article:
> internal company documents […] showing that Uber had flagged her ride as a higher risk for a serious safety incident moments before she was picked up. Uber never warned her […]
Uber actually had a whole project that produced systems that determine the risk of incidents happening. Could they make rides safer but chose not to? That’s at the core of these lawsuits.
Interesting. When it's the state I think the overwhelming opinion is that predictive policing is dangerous but when it's a private company we actually want it to enforce it?
Oof, this sounds like a case where executives/management who knew about this tool and didn't act upon it should be charged with accessory-to-crime. There has got to be a moral imperative to act upon tools like this.
It probably depends on the state but in California, yes. Dog owners there are strictly liable for any injuries caused by their dogs unless the victim was trespassing.
I agree the company shouldn’t be held liable. But Uber doesn’t vet drivers properly because they want driver numbers to be high. I see too many Uber vehicles where the driver doesn’t match the name/photo.
What incentive would there be for a gig company like Uber to not deliberately hire criminals if Uber isn't liable, but other companies could be? Reputational damage isn't enough to hurt the bottom line and to change behavior - if it were, they would've already done more, but they didn't because they were operating under the assumption that they were legally insulated.
bonsai_spool|23 days ago
This is quite standard actually, and there's a long common law tradition around this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respondeat_superior).
The question here was whether Uber could claim the drivers were not, in fact, employees.
(edit: A commenter correctly explains that no employee relationship is necessarily required; I should have stated that this was one part of Uber's defense, in addition to the driver having agreed not to assault riders and having undergone a safety screening)
klodolph|23 days ago
carlosjobim|23 days ago
According to the article you linked to, a similar case was already tried in 1838, when a boy fell off a wagon, and the master was not guilty of the behaviour of the wagon driver.
JohnTHaller|23 days ago
b00ty4breakfast|23 days ago
>....including some showing that Uber had flagged her ride as a higher risk for a serious safety incident moments before she was picked up. Uber never warned her, with an executive testifying that it would have been “impractical” to do so.
as well as some
>...suggesting that Uber resisted introducing safety features such as in-car cameras because it believed these measures would slow corporate growth.
I would probably have not been included on the jury because I think uber is run by some of the biggest scumbags in the corporate world but if the article is to be believed it's not an unreasonable verdict unless you think no company should be liable for anything that results from their choices and actions.
pacificmint|23 days ago
From the article:
> internal company documents […] showing that Uber had flagged her ride as a higher risk for a serious safety incident moments before she was picked up. Uber never warned her […]
Uber actually had a whole project that produced systems that determine the risk of incidents happening. Could they make rides safer but chose not to? That’s at the core of these lawsuits.
satellite2|23 days ago
kylehotchkiss|23 days ago
nilslindemann|23 days ago
croes|23 days ago
buellerbueller|23 days ago
kingstnap|23 days ago
GaryBluto|23 days ago
hackingonempty|23 days ago
cute_boi|23 days ago
Edman274|23 days ago