My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won • Hacker News Board

Re: My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

#171

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:05 PM UTC

haberman wrote: post #57

burkaman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally does mean virtually now. If you care about using words to convey meaning, you should care what other people think words mean. What you think is pretty much irrelevant if everyone else disagrees with you.

If a word has two definitions that have opposite meanings, then the word literally doesn't have any meaning at all. > What you think is pretty much irrelevant if everyone else disagrees with you. You don't think I can find a single other person who agrees with me?

> If a word has two definitions that have opposite meanings, then the word literally doesn't have any meaning at all.

First, this is wrong; many words have multiple meanings some of which are diametrically opposed; they still have meaning, though it may take awareness of context to interpret the correct meaning.

Second, its irrelevant; the different meanings of “literally” are not opposites, though the figurative use (which does not, contrary to some descriptions, mean same as “figuratively”) is often presented incorrectly in a manner which suggests that. The figurative meaning is a qualitative intensifier applied to another figurative description which the speaker expects is clearly figurative from context, not a description which communicated that that use is figurative rather than literal.

Re: My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

#172

Post by burkaman » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:07 PM UTC

wutbrodo wrote: post #148

burkaman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally does mean virtually now. If you care about using words to convey meaning, you should care what other people think words mean. What you think is pretty much irrelevant if everyone else disagrees with you.

> Literally does mean virtually now. : ( I don't disagree with you, and I get that prescriptivism is a losing battle (and the wrong battle, IMO), but this one bothers me, because we actually _lost_ expressive power.

No we didn't. Exaggeration is a normal part of language, and every strong-sounding word will be "misused" for effect sometimes. "This heat is killing me", "I'm in love with this ice cream", "I swear to god...", etc. It's almost always clear which version of "literally" someone is using, and I suspect the exaggerated usage is as old as the word itself.

Re: My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

#173

Post by kobeya » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:20 PM UTC

ivraatiems wrote: post #170

enjo wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most (maybe all?) small claims courts you are forbidden to have a lawyer present. Companies generally send an administrative assistant or something similar. You are welcome to retain an attorney before and after the hearing, but they can not be present during.

In Massachusetts, you may have an attorney in small claims court. [1] I think most states allow it, but it isn't super common to actually do. [1] http://www.mass.gov/ago/consumer-resources/consumer-assistan...

Not in California, fwiw. (Mention only because many people here are in CA, although I know the op is in MA).

Re: My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

#174

Post by kpxxx » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:20 PM UTC

ivraatiems wrote: post #114

jessriedel wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that big companies are not your friend, but is it really necessary to wage total war by using all possible legal advantages and issuing ultimatums? "Here is the evidence I have that you're in the wrong" can sometimes hurt you later in court, but it can avoid the entire mess by convincing the party that they will likely lose, or yield a compromise.

> I get that big companies are not your friend, but is it really necessary to wage total war by using all possible legal advantages and issuing ultimatums? Initially, no. By the time you're in a court of law, yes. Once you file suit - small claims or not - discussion time is over. If you make that decision prematurely, that's not great, but there's no taking it back except by dismissing the suit, which would have bee…

> Once you file suit - small claims or not - discussion time is over.

Not true in America at least. Parties can agree to settle at pretty much anytime. Most civil filings don't even make it to trial, and even those that do often end up in settlement.

Re: My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

#175

Post by donatj » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:21 PM UTC

spike021 wrote: post #115

donatj wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've bought cars that came with plates and I've bought cars where they had to mail them to me. I think it varies.

True. It's just a bit odd to me that the driver wouldn't think to update the plate number in the app, or that uber/lyft would be so slow to update it. I doubt it's a human in the cloud who sees a notification that a driver would like to update their plate number and then adds it to a queue to work on.

I doubt the guy was trying to pull something over on you. I don't drive for Lyft but I feel like it's one of those small easily missed details that's very important to a small subsection of your customers and no one else cares.

Having used Lyft countless times over the last few years I know I have personally never checked the checked that the plate matched.

Re: My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

#176

Post by wolco » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:24 PM UTC

notheguyouthink wrote: post #88

gravypod wrote: post #76

"I just didn’t buy that a company could just get away with that business model. Hire anyone with a car, facilitate everything, and have no responsibility for what happens in the cars." If I got food sick from something I ordered off GrubHub could I sue them?

I'm curious how far this line goes, too. If I go to Subway and a worker stabs me, does Subway owe me millions? I'm really confused how Uber is responsible here.. it just seems, odd, to me. Now, if Uber as a company promoted (in one way or another) reckless speeding for the sake of fast drop-offs, and I get hit by an Uber driver, yes I think Uber is at fault (and the driver) . However, why does it sound like Uber is r…

If you go into subway and an employee stabs you for no good reason you sue subway

Re: My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

#177

Post by hsod » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:30 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #153

hsod wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? "It was later asserted that they reached out to the police detective to clear this up. They found the information and tried to contact the detective with all the information." "If you are curious as to when this happened, it was April 9th. Uber did everything in their power to make the investigation successful and cooperate with the detective, on April 9th, 2017, four months after the incident. They also only…

Because it meant that the narrative at the first trial was that he was making it up. "Awfully fishy how you have all this evidence of the existence of something and then it was immediately stolen", "and we don't even have a record of a trip or driver matching that". Which lead to them only being found 50% liable the first time.

That's not true at all, in the narrative of the first trial the author makes it very clear that Uber did not deny that the trip or theft happened:

"The one good thing that he did was he did not deny the contents or existence of my backpack."

"One point the Uber rep gave was that I should have heard the car driving away and chased after him."

"The Uber representative said that their drivers are independent contractors and as such, they are not responsible for making sure that they respond to any phone calls, and actually had zero control over what they do."

"Uber said that the driver had a good standing, but was very evasive when asked if he had taken any more trips that night. The Clerk made him answer that there was only one more ride given. This alluded to the possibility that the other passenger could have taken the bag from the backseat."

Re: My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

#178

Post by RyanOD » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:33 PM UTC

lazyant wrote: post #130

ivraatiems wrote: post #82

I'm glad this worked out for the OP. However, I think he may have made a couple mistakes that could have been avoided for a smoother process. The big one is not retaining an attorney. No, he doesn't have to for small claims court, but Uber clearly had its legal team looking at this. Now, I understand that lawyers are expensive and carry their own issues - but if he'd won the case with an attorney, he could potentiall…

I called several attorney offices for a small claim court case (max $2k in that particular state iirc) and they laughed at me.

I wonder if an attorney would have taken this case pro bono for the opportunity to represent a case against a big name company such as Uber.

Re: My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

#179

Post by spike021 » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:35 PM UTC

donatj wrote: post #175

spike021 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. It's just a bit odd to me that the driver wouldn't think to update the plate number in the app, or that uber/lyft would be so slow to update it. I doubt it's a human in the cloud who sees a notification that a driver would like to update their plate number and then adds it to a queue to work on.

I doubt the guy was trying to pull something over on you. I don't drive for Lyft but I feel like it's one of those small easily missed details that's very important to a small subsection of your customers and no one else cares. Having used Lyft countless times over the last few years I know I have personally never checked the checked that the plate matched.

Oh, definitely.

However, usually that's the way I identify the correct driver. For instance Priuses are the more common car and sometimes it's easier to memorize the first 4 or so digits on a plate than the make/model/color that my driver is driving.

But on the other hand, it's still a small issue at least because in some rare circumstance somebody could use it maliciously.

Re: My Uber driver robbed me, so I took Uber to court and won

#180

Post by escapetech » Wed, Jun 21, 2017, 9:36 PM UTC

module0000 wrote: post #100

This guy took the high road - once he had the license plate and an address, this could have taken a very different turn. If you're into someone for $4,000, it's a coin flip whether they invest effort into getting it back, or invest another $4,000 for someone else to get you back. If you are going to steal from someone, always keep that in the back of your mind... you don't know what type of person you're stealing fro…

> This could have taken a very different turn.

Until something similar happens to them, people often take for granted living in a society where the legal process is relatively accessible to those needing it.