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Court of Appeal:
Rideshare Company Not Liable for Accident Occurring Minutes After Driver Signed Off
Opinion Says Ability to Toggle to Active Status in Pricing Areas Where Pricing Is Higher Is Insufficient to Establish Uber’s Liability for Accident by Offline Contractor
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Div. Eight of this district’s Court of Appeal has held that the fact that a driver working for a rideshare corporation can toggle between inactive and available within seconds—and might choose to remain offline while traveling to areas where pricing is higher—is insufficient to establish that the company is vicariously liable for an accident allegedly caused by an operator four minutes after he logged off of the app.
The accident occurred at 2:28 a.m. on Jan. 19, 2020 on Santa Monica Boulevard near the intersection with Bundy Drive in West Los Angeles. Ralph Wilson III had logged off from his Uber app minutes before he inadvertently drove a vehicle into pedestrian Mackenzie Young Jay Kim.
On July 6, 2020, Kim filed a complaint against Wilson and Uber Technologies Inc., and related companies, asserting negligence and other causes of action. The Uber defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that Wilson was off duty at the time of the accident and, as such, they were not liable for his actions.
After a contested hearing, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Cherol J. Nellon granted the motion on May 10, 2023, saying in the minute order:
“Plaintiff argues that Wilson would routinely switch from offline to active throughout his time driving for Uber in order to take advantage of surge pricing. However, there is no evidence provided that indicates Wilson was not done driving for the night…[Plaintiff]…presents a dangerous argument that imbues liability on rideshare companies for negligence committed by rideshare agents even when ‘offline,’ and not transporting passengers.”
Justice Elizabeth A. Grimes authored the opinion, filed Aug. 30 and certified for publication on Friday, affirming the judgment. Presiding Justice Maria E. Stratton and Justice Victor Viramontes joined in the opinion.
Factual Disputes
Kim contended that Wilson was offline because he was headed for a “surge” pricing area. Grimes explained that “ ‘Surge pricing’ occurs in areas where many people are requesting rides at the same time (because of bad weather, rush hour, or special events) and there are not enough cars on the road to take them all.”
Grimes wrote:
“The core of plaintiff’s argument is that the Uber app was always open on Mr. Wilson’s phone, so when he went offline at 2:24 a.m., he could have been looking for a surge, he could have seen a surge (had there been one, of which there is no evidence), and he could have been driving toward a surge area in offline status when the collision occurred, intending to switch to ‘available’ status when he got there. There are too many ‘could haves’ in this speculative scenario, and there is no support for it in the evidence.”
She continued:
“Moreover,…the evidence does not show ‘that Wilson toggled between “available” and “offline” multiple times during the five hours…he drove for Uber on the night of the collision.’ Quite the opposite: The evidence shows he went to offline status once—for six seconds, from 12:40:58 a.m. to 12:41:06 a.m.—during the almost five hours he drove for Uber that night.”
Addressing in a footnote the 60 pages of earning records showing that 7.5 percent of Wilson’s earnings during the five weeks before the accident were for surge rates, Grimes said that “[t]his is evidence he sometimes drove to or in surge zones, but it is not evidence” that he would go offline while traveling to those areas.
The jurist concluded that “there is nothing here for a jury to decide; plaintiff’s claim of what Mr. Wilson ‘could have’ done is complete speculation, and juries are not permitted to speculate.”
Inconsistent Statements
As to alleged inconsistencies between what Wilson said he was doing leading up to the accident and the Uber records, the justice remarked:
“Plaintiff also insists a jury should have determined whether Wilson is a credible witness, because his testimony about how long he had been driving and where he drove before he went offline…was contradictory and conflicted with Uber’s records….[W]hat Mr. Wilson planned to do…is irrelevant; Uber’s records confirm exactly where and when Mr. Wilson went offline, that is, at 2:24 a.m. and more than a mile from the accident site.”
Grimes added:
“Plaintiff’s insistence that Mr. Wilson could not have both gone to McDonald’s, bought food, and driven to the accident site in the four or five minutes after he went offline, does not change the undisputed fact that he went to offline status at 2:24 a.m. at a location in West Los Angeles that was a mile or so from the scene of the accident, and called 9-1-1 to report he hit a pedestrian at 2:28 a.m. The rest is immaterial. The undisputed material facts show Mr. Wilson was not acting as an Uber driver at the time of the accident.”
She rejected an assertion that Nellon acted on public policy concerns rather than analyzing the existence of triable issues of fact, saying “[w]e do not see the trial court’s ruling as ‘based on public policy perspectives’ ” but instead commented that the judgment “was based on the absence of any dispute on the material facts.”
The case is Kim v. Uber Technologies, 2024 S.O.S. 3299.
Los Angeles-area attorneys Matthew Kita and Bradley S. Wallace, of The Wallace Firm PC, represented Kim.
The Uber parties were represented by Connor J. Stinson with the Los Angeles office of Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP and Steven G. Williamson, Julie LeMaye Hussey, and Gregory F. Miller of the Century City firm of Perkins Cole LLP.
Copyright 2024, Metropolitan News Company