From JDSupra, Richard Reibstein discusses a case in which the court said that a ride-sharing company may be liable for the death of a driver murdered by passengers even though the driver was an independent contractor. Richard writes:
RIDE-SHARING COMPANY CAN BE LIABLE FOR FATALITY OF DRIVER KILLED BY PASSENGERS, DESPITE IC STATUS OF DRIVER. The estate of a ride-sharing driver, found to have been murdered by two of his passengers, is entitled to proceed with its case against the ride-sharing company that connected the driver to the passengers that killed him. The driver in this case was slain by two riders in a failed carjacking attempt. The driver’s estate sued the ride-sharing company for negligence and wrongful death, and a federal district court granted summary judgment in favor of the company. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s decision and remanded the case to the district court. It concluded that there existed between the ride-sharing company and the driver a special relationship involving vulnerability, entrustment, and traits of dependence and control that gave rise to a duty of care, and the specific harms were legally foreseeable to the company. The Ninth Circuit reasoned that the company “did not disclose to [the driver]—nor give him any opportunity to discover—which riders had suspicious profiles or were using anonymous forms of payment.” It further concluded that “[g]iven [the company’s] knowledge of assaults at the time, this incident “was not so highly extraordinary or improbable as to be unforeseeable as a matter of law.”
This decision is noteworthy as it involves an independent contractor. Typically, the law does not extend liability to third parties for the negligence or intentional acts of an IC. Here, however, the facts were flipped, as it was not the actions of the IC that were sought by an injured party to be imputed to the company, but rather the acts of third parties who injured the IC. To that end, the court concluded that the estate presented sufficient undisputed evidence for it to find that the company “maintained a requisite level of control in matching drivers with riders, such that [the driver] entrusted and was dependent upon [the company] for his safety.” The court added, the company “alone controlled the verification methods of drivers and riders, what information to make available to each respective party, and consistently represented to drivers that it took their safety into consideration.” Drammeh v. Uber Technologies Inc., No. 22-36038 (9th Cir. Aug. 30, 2024).