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Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

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Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#41

Post by endisneigh »

RegnisGnaw wrote: post #38
endisneigh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how you can say this when Uber connected the victim with the assailants.

If a women meets a guy for a date after meeting through OKCupid (lets say he showed up in the list of recommended matches based on their profile) and he rapes her. Are you saying OKCupid should be sued?

Uber isn’t being sued here so your comparison doesn’t make sense. Okcupid also doesn’t talk about safety of meetups the same way Uber does about the safety of riders and passengers.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#42

Post by josefx »

gruez wrote: post #34
josefx wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having to sign an NDA? As you say the $1000 is just what he is missing from insurance, not a cent more. They essentially expect him to sign an NDA for free.

>As you say the $1000 is just what he is missing from insurance, not a cent more. They essentially expect him to sign an NDA for free. No, because he's working as a independent contractor and therefore is expected to be on his when it comes to costs/losses. He's normally entitled to $0 from uber, which means he's getting paid $1000 for the NDA.

> He's normally entitled to $0 from uber, which means he's getting paid $1000 for the NDA.

Entitled or not, that would still leave him getting barely even after the entire experience. That does not provide one with a happy person.

> No, because he's working as a independent contractor and therefore is expected to be on his when it comes to costs/losses

A contractor who can't run a good risk analysis on his job because the company that hired him has a habit of handing out NDAs to anyone who ever ran into trouble while working for them. Now I am not a lawyer, but could that be spun into dropping at least some of the blame at Uber?

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#43

Post by contra-doubts »

mr-wendel wrote: post #21

This what I think is absolutely ridiculously nuts. Taxi services are typically heavily regulated and in major markets a permit (e.g. medallions auctions[1]) can cost hundreds of thousands, if not over a million dollars and are strictly limited in supply. Thus, drivers are employees of a bigger company who manages every other part of the economic relationship. Kinda like Uber (and Lyft, etc), but because "you can brin…

> Thus, drivers are employees of a bigger company who manages every other part of the economic relationship.

That's totally incorrect. The vast majority of taxi drivers are also independent contractors. They lease the vehicle+medallion from a taxi corporation.

https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/d/d... - an informative breakdown from 2007.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#44

Post by FireBeyond »

ricardobeat wrote: post #8

Shouldn’t an event like this be covered by insurance? I assume the driver did not have commercial insurance and wants Uber to be responsible, which goes back to the independent contractor vs employee debate?

Well, Uber _is_ the one who gave him the riders who carjacked him. Uber, to be clear, is the one who says they vet their riders and drivers. I'm not saying they should have known/predicted etc., but Uber is saying that's their value-add.

Except, as with all of these companies, it's actually not. It's more a matter of 'all privilege, no responsibility'.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#45

Post by FireBeyond »

wutbrodo wrote: post #29
endisneigh wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how you can say this when Uber connected the victim with the assailants.

In the same sense that Apple is not at fault for allowing its hardware to connect the assailant and victim. I'm aware that we don't consider manufacturers to be culpable for the actions taken with their hardware, and that there's a case to be made that Uber's service is "closer" to the illegal act and thus more responsible. But that case actually needs to be made. Whether it's Apple or Uber, there are expectations th…

> In the same sense that Apple is not at fault for allowing its hardware to connect the assailant and victim.

Except that Uber claims that the value-add its "marketplace" provides is vetting riders and drivers and providing safety.

Doesn't mean they could predict this (though there's several instances of people being reported for other aggressive/harassing behaviors and -not- being kicked off), but when you're slurping "value" from both your rider and driver predicated on providing vetting and safety, well...

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#46

Post by gruez »

josefx wrote: post #42
gruez wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As you say the $1000 is just what he is missing from insurance, not a cent more. They essentially expect him to sign an NDA for free. No, because he's working as a independent contractor and therefore is expected to be on his when it comes to costs/losses. He's normally entitled to $0 from uber, which means he's getting paid $1000 for the NDA.

> He's normally entitled to $0 from uber, which means he's getting paid $1000 for the NDA. Entitled or not, that would still leave him getting barely even after the entire experience. That does not provide one with a happy person. > No, because he's working as a independent contractor and therefore is expected to be on his when it comes to costs/losses A contractor who can't run a good risk analysis on his job becaus…

>That does not provide one with a happy person.

The situation sucks, but I fail to see why he should be compensated by uber. Should your employer compensate you if your car got stolen on your way to work?

>A contractor who can't run a good risk analysis on his job because the company that hired him has a habit of handing out NDAs to anyone who ever ran into trouble while working for them.

Are crime statistics not publicly available in his city? Suppose uber puts a disclaimer during the application that there are 0.1 car jackings per million miles driven (this is an overestimate. the national average seems to be 0.011, based on https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M12MTVUSM227NFWA and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carjacking#Prevalence_and_stat...). Are significant amounts of uber drivers going to be dissuaded by that statistic?

> Now I am not a lawyer, but could that be spun into dropping at least some of the blame at Uber?

Not a lawyer either, but "you're responsible because you didn't tell them about the risks" isn't a concept I know of in tort law.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#47

Post by klyrs »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #6

Uber tried to compensate this independent contractor when they had no legal reason to do so. The contractors assume all legal risk when they work as an independent contractor, which is why many contractors in other industries often form an LLC so their assets are shielded from liability. On top of this, NDAs are common in arbitration. They were under no legal requirement to sign. Plus, compensating drivers a ton for…

> It would be trivial for a driver's buddy to "carjack" them on camera and seek a payout from it.

Driver's buddy risks prison in doing so. How many friends would do that for you?

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#48

Post by aurizon »

Before WW2 there was a far lower proportion of people who could drive cars. WW2 essentially taught almost every soldier to drive. After WW2 was over there were huge numbers of drivers and a shortage of jobs and used cars were cheap. This led to large numbers of people offering rides for hire. This was a huge shake-up to the taxi business and laws against these ad-hoc taxis were soon enacted. Later they also wanted to create a scarcity of taxis so prices could be kept high and the medallion business emerged. The high prices meant you could make so much money that medallion prices went through the roof. During WW2, miniature radio tubes were developed so a 2 way radio was practical for cars. This led to the radio dispatch empires that also collected medallions. In Toronto new medallions were issued to drivers after 10-20 years of full time driving. Before they had their own medallion you rented a medallion for each of the two shifts the taxi business operated on. Once you got your own you could join a radio dispatch group and pay a radio fee. These groups would register a catchy number and when any one wanted a cab they called that number - gave the address and radio dispatched a taxi. Nice fat little empires - full of abuse. Most cities in USA/Canada were happy to see Uber come along as the taxi companies were charging $50-100 for a ride to the airport. This was a cash cow as most trips were under 30 minutes (away from rush hour) even the airports want part of the fee. Taxi companies tried everything to kill Uber/Lyft. Now the greed of Uber/Lyft are killing themselves. Uber/Lyft could be replaced by a dispatching website over the air, with no fee to Uber/Lyft at all. The 'free-range-drivers' would have to make an organization and build a site, which could be replicated all over. The site cost would be under 5% of the ride fee (IMHO). An added cost is possibly driver insurance against customer harm and the usual car insurance. Insurance companies could implement insurance per mile (with access to the speedo cluster)

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#49

Post by daveFNbuck »

duxup wrote: post #33

I'm not a fan of NDA's like this but I keep wondering reading that whole thing: An Uber driver is carjacked, why is Uber in play here? Is Uber potentially responsible in some way?

I don't know about legal responsibility, but this happened because the driver was working for Uber. Uber knew who the carjacker was before it happened, and they directed the driver to the carjacking.

This wouldn't have happened without Uber's involvement, and Uber is uniquely situated to be able to prevent this type of carjacking. If they're not responsible for the costs of their safety decisions, they should be.

Re: Uber requires nondisclosure agreement before compensating carjacked driver

#50

Post by duxup »

daveFNbuck wrote: post #49
duxup wrote: post #33

I'm not a fan of NDA's like this but I keep wondering reading that whole thing: An Uber driver is carjacked, why is Uber in play here? Is Uber potentially responsible in some way?

I don't know about legal responsibility, but this happened because the driver was working for Uber. Uber knew who the carjacker was before it happened, and they directed the driver to the carjacking. This wouldn't have happened without Uber's involvement, and Uber is uniquely situated to be able to prevent this type of carjacking. If they're not responsible for the costs of their safety decisions, they should be.

Uber works with anyone who downloads the app and makes the account right?

If they knew someone was a carjacker and didn't stop them I could see what you're saying, otherwise ... that's pretty distant a connection IMO.

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