Rideshare drivers and a California drivers group filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court against Uber, saying the company’s approach to deactivating drivers and handling appeals violates California’s Proposition 22. The lawsuit challenges Uber’s process for removing drivers from the app and asserts that the appeals pathway Uber provides does not give drivers due process as required by the law. The case was filed Monday, according to the complaint as described by reporting.
Proposition 22, a ballot measure approved by California voters in 2020, carved out app-based rideshare and delivery work from state labor law and allowed companies such as Uber to classify drivers as independent contractors. The initiative also included promises intended to soften the impact of that classification, including an appeals process for drivers when issues arise related to their work. The lawsuit says Uber has not delivered on that promised appeals system in practice.
Rideshare Drivers United, which the reporting said has about 20,000 members in California, argues that Uber should not be able to continue asserting that drivers are independent contractors if it did not satisfy Proposition 22’s conditions. Shannon Liss-Riordan, the Massachusetts-based lawyer representing the group, said in a statement to CalMatters that “Uber has not met the conditions to take advantage of Prop. 22.” She was also quoted describing what she is seeking from the court.
At a news conference in San Francisco, Liss-Riordan said the litigation will seek a declaration that Uber is violating the law written into Proposition 22. She also said the declaration would help drivers pursuing individual arbitration of their cases, and that the plaintiffs are seeking remedies such as back pay and other damages for drivers who were allegedly unfairly deactivated. “We’re going to seek back pay and other damages for them if they were unfairly deactivated, and we’re also going to be seeking their rights under the labor code,” she said.
The lawsuit and accompanying reporting describe what some deactivated drivers say they experienced when trying to challenge their removal from the Uber app. Drivers reported that they are initially routed to websites that appear to involve bots, then eventually reach agents working from a script. The reporting said drivers rarely reach people they believe can actually help with their situation.
Uber spokesperson Ramona Prieto rejected the allegation. In an email to CalMatters, Prieto called Liss-Riordan an “opportunistic trial lawyer” and said Uber will “fight this publicity stunt in court.” Prieto said the company provides drivers with a clear appeals process and pointed to a company blog post from the prior week describing what drivers can expect when they challenge deactivations.
Several named drivers described the effects of being deactivated. Devins Baker, who said he has driven for Uber and Lyft in the Bay Area for eight years, said Uber deactivated him right before Christmas in 2024. Baker told CalMatters that he believes the deactivation followed an incident in which he said he had to brake hard to avoid hitting a person who darted across a freeway, which the reporting said resulted in Baker’s passenger falling out of the seat. “I don’t know because we never find out which passenger complained,” Baker said, adding that he believes some people report drivers to try to get a free ride from Uber. At the news conference, Baker was described as emotional and said he is trying to avoid becoming homeless.
Another driver, Mirwais Noory, told CalMatters that Uber kicked him off the app in November 2024 over what Uber said were safety concerns. Noory said he tried to show the company dashcam video to plead his case. He said the deactivation led to financial hardship while he tries to support four children, that he found work as a security guard, and that he now occasionally drives for Lyft. “I’m the only one with income,” Noory told CalMatters. “It has turned my life upside down.”
Rideshare Drivers United’s leaders argued that deactivations also cut drivers off from other forms of support that employees may rely on. Jason Munderloh, chair of the Bay Area chapter of Rideshare Drivers United, said at the news conference that “Once they’re deactivated, there is no unemployment insurance (because drivers are not considered employees). This leads to poverty and desperation.” Nicole Moore, the group’s president, told CalMatters ahead of the news conference that the first concern for many drivers after joining Rideshare Drivers United is pay, and the second is deactivations.
The lawsuit also alleged that Uber deactivates drivers based on grounds not specified in Uber’s “Platform Access Agreement.” It further alleged that Uber does not provide enough information about earnings for drivers to verify whether they are receiving guaranteed minimum earnings that the Proposition 22 initiative described as 120% of minimum wage for active ride or delivery time, as well as other benefits for those who qualify. The initiative’s text, as described in the reporting, also referenced health care stipends, occupational accident insurance and accidental death insurance, and “mandatory contractual rights and appeal processes,” without specifying detailed requirements for what an appeals process must include.
The case is among multiple legal challenges to Proposition 22, the reporting said. It also noted that CalMatters has found no state agency assigned to enforce Proposition 22 and that the state Supreme Court upheld the gig-work law in 2024. Separately, the reporting said Uber is facing a lawsuit by the state Justice Department and the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego over thousands of wage-theft claims tied to periods before Proposition 22, and described a December 2027 trial deadline for that suit as well as a similar one against Lyft.