Fearing 'endless loop' of mistrials, judge tosses Uber driver classification case
Adds Uber statement in paragraphs 7-8
By Daniel Wiessner
July 30 (Reuters) -A federal judge in Philadelphia on Tuesday dismissed a long-running lawsuit accusing Uber Technologies of misclassifying drivers as independent contractors rather than its employees, saying a third trial would be futile after two separate juries deadlocked.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson comes after a pair of six-day trials in March and June in which jurors could not agree on whether Uber exerted enough control over drivers for luxury service UberBLACK in Philadelphia to be considered their employer under federal wage law.
Uber has faced scores of similar lawsuits. Filed by three drivers in 2016 on behalf of a class of potentially hundreds of others, the proposed class action was at one time seen as an important bellwether.
Baylson in one of the first decisions of its kind in 2018 said the drivers were not Uber's employees under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed him two years later, paving the way for the case to go to trial.
On Tuesday, Baylson said the plaintiffs had not shown that they could convince a third jury to rule in their favor, and that granting them another trial would waste the court's resources.
"No single litigant has the right to continuously monopolize a district court's docket in this manner," wrote Baylson, an appointee of Republican former President George W. Bush.
Uber in a statement said it was "thrilled that Judge Baylson finally said 'enough.'"
"The fact of the matter, evidenced by multiple failures to convince a jury otherwise, is that drivers on Uber are independent contractors," the company said.
Shannon Liss-Riordan, who represents the plaintiffs and tens of thousands of other Uber and Lyft drivers in similar cases around the country, said she planned to appeal the decision. She noted that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2020 ruled that Uber drivers are the company's employees under state unemployment insurance law.
"It makes no sense that Uber drivers are employees in Pennsylvania for purposes of unemployment but not for wages. The court was unfortunately very mistaken about the law here," Liss-Riordan said in an email.
Like many other cases against Uber, the lawsuit claims that drivers were owed the minimum wage and overtime pay. Employees are entitled to many rights not extended to independent contractors and can cost companies up to 30% more, according to several studies.
Despite the barrage of lawsuits against Uber and other app-based services, few have yielded final rulings on how gig workers should be classified. Many cases have been sent to private arbitration or settled.
And the industry has won several victories, including a California Supreme Court ruling last week upholding a ballot measure that allows app-based drivers to be treated as independent contractors.
Baylson on Tuesday credited "the herculean efforts of plaintiffs' counsel" in litigating the Philadelphia case for eight years, but said he had an obligation to manage the court's docket.
"As this case now presents the prospect of an endless loop of deadlocked juries, swift resolution is warranted," he wrote.
The case is Razak v. Uber, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, No. 2:16-cv-00573.
For the plaintiffs: Shannon Liss-Riordan and Jeremy Abay of Lichten & Liss-Riordan
For Uber: Christian Angotti of Littler Mendelson; Heather Richardson of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher
Read more:
U.S. judge says Uber drivers are not company's employees
Worker advocates tell 3rd Circuit that drivers are Uber's employees
3rd Circuit will be first appeal court to consider classification of Uber drivers
U.S. Supreme Court rejects Uber bid to avoid driver pay lawsuit
Penn. Supreme Court says Uber driver is employee entitled to unemployment benefits
California top court upholds ballot measure treating Uber, Lyft drivers as independent contractors
Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York
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