Two drivers filed separate class-action lawsuits against ride-sharing companies for failure to pay sick leave and potentially exposing riders to COVID-19.
On March 17, Spencer Verhines sued Uber Technologies alleging that because the company doesn’t classify its drivers as employees and pay them sick leave, many will continue driving even if they are infected with COVID-19.
“Faced with the choice of staying home without pay and risking losing access to their livelihood, Uber drivers across California will continue working and risk exposing hundreds of riders who enter their car on a weekly basis to this deadly disease,” wrote Verhines’ attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan.
The lawsuit is being litigated in the Northern District Court of California.
“COVID19 doesn’t change anything,” said William B. Gould IV, an attorney, professor of law at Stanford Law School and author of the book A Primer on American Labor Law (6th edition. 2019). “It simply dramatizes the importance of sick pay and the fragility of the American safety net.”
Just two days later on March 19, John Rogers v Lyft Inc. was filed by the same attorney, alleging that under Assembly Bill 5, passed by the California legislature, drivers are intended to be covered by the statute, which extends employee classification status to gig workers.
“Plaintiffs have the law on their side,” Gould told the Southern California Record. "As employees, they have a right to sick pay.”
While Rogers filed an emergency motion for a preliminary injunction, Lyft filed a motion to compel individual arbitration and to stay the action pending resolution of arbitration.
“Defendants can create serious obstacles through the Federal Arbitration Act which requires private plaintiffs to submit to what Justice Ginsburg called 'unbargained for' employer controlled and promulgated arbitration,” Gould said in an interview. “Transportation workers are exempted from these proceedings but most of the courts have held that though ridesharing drivers might be exempted, they must be engaged in interstate commerce individually.”