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I'm not sure that a Lyft driver suing has as much bad potential for Uber as a class action of former Uber drivers. Given the reported churn there's likely a sig
by fencepost 10y ago
I'm not sure that a Lyft driver suing has as much bad potential for Uber as a class action of former Uber drivers. Given the reported churn there's likely a significant pool of those drivers, and since Uber apparently considers both Lyft and McDonald's as competitors, it seems likely that many of them are not feeling wealthy.
IIRC the previous coverage noted that Uber was providing incentives to drivers who were using both systems, including both bonuses and steering passengers to the both-systems drivers to incentivize them to drop Lyft and only drive for Uber. The corollary of that is that there are a bunch of Uber-only drivers and former drivers who had their incomes hurt by Uber's redirection of profitable fares to 2-system drivers. THAT may be actionable, and a class action of former drivers seems like it wouldn't be that hard to put together.
- wbl 10y agoHow is it actionable? Uber is under no obligation to give any driver rides. Favoring ones with a better BATNA is just good business.
- fencepost 10y agoThis would likely depend on the terms of the contract with the drivers and on what statements if any were made to drivers about how rides were allocated, prioritized, etc. If the drivers had been led to believe that ride allocation was "fair" (based on distance, predicted arrival time, etc.) or under their control (based on rides being presented to multiple drivers and assigned to the first responder) then finding that it was actually weighted in favor of people driving for Lyft might be a problem for them. This also goes back to the principle of "anyone can sue for anything" as long as it's not frivolous, and this doesn't seem like it'd be considered such. A suit might not be successful, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't at least considered.