Class Action: Uber Lied to NYC Drivers for Years About ‘Sales Tax,’ ‘Black Car Fund’ Pay Deductions [UPDATE]
Last Updated on March 31, 2021
Aleksanian et al. v. Uber Technologies, Inc. et al.
Filed: November 6, 2019 ◆§ 1:19-cv-10308
Uber is facing a class action over allegations it took illegal deductions from drivers’ pay and charged passengers different fares than what it reported to drivers.
Case Updates
March 8, 2021 – Case Sent to Arbitration
The lawsuit detailed on this page has been sent to arbitration after a judge ruled that the plaintiff and similarly situated Uber drivers do not fall under an exemption to the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) for “workers engaged in interstate commerce.”
Citing relevant case law, U.S. District Judge Andrew L. Carter, Jr. ruled that the plaintiff is not part of a class of workers for whom interstate trips are “a central part of [their] job description.” Though the plaintiff may have traveled between states as part of his job duties, Uber drivers’ work “predominantly entails intrastate trips,” Judge Carter wrote in a March 8 order.
While the plaintiff has framed the proposed class of workers as “New York City Uber drivers” in an attempt to argue that the exemption does apply, the judge found that there is “no basis for defining the class so narrowly” given the majority of cases against Uber or Lyft define the class as simply “Uber drivers” or “Lyft drivers,” who, as a class, are not engaged in interstate commerce.
Moreover, although the plaintiff alleges that “a sizable portion” of Uber drivers’ trips include transporting people to international and interstate travel hubs, the relationship between the drivers’ work and interstate transit is “only casual and incidental,” the judge wrote.
After granting the defendant’s motion to compel arbitration, Judge Carter dismissed the case on March 8, 2021.
A proposed class action lawsuit claims Uber Technologies, Inc. and subsidiaries Uber Logistik and Uber USA breached their contracts with more than 96,000 New York City drivers by making paycheck deductions for sales tax and “Black Car Fund” (BCF) surcharges that were not permitted by the company’s terms. The 25-page lawsuit out of New York’s Southern District further alleges Uber’s “Upfront Pricing” was no more than a scheme by which the ride-hailing company surreptitiously paid drivers less than the fare amount quoted to passengers.
Filed by three named plaintiffs in conjunction with the New York Taxi Workers’ Alliance, the lawsuit claims that Uber’s contracts from 2011 to May 22, 2017 guaranteed drivers a set percentage of each fare while only allowing for the deduction of a “service fee” to serve as the company’s commission. The case contends, however, that although Uber and its subsidiaries were prohibited from deducting any amounts from drivers’ pay other than service fees, the company made further deductions represented as “sales tax” and surcharges for the Black Car Fund, a non-profit that provides workers’ compensation for black car drivers. Further, the case states that these allegedly improper deductions, made only for trips within New York State, came in addition to Uber’s typical 20-28 percent fee of a ride’s total fare.
The lawsuit goes on to claim that Uber continued to make improper “sales tax” and Black Car Fund deductions from drivers’ pay until the allegations from another class action led the company to revise its contract terms to allow for both deductions. Uber, in May 2017, amended its terms so that drivers were no longer promised the full fare paid by the passenger with only a service fee deducted and switched to a rate structure the company claimed was simpler and more transparent, the suit explains. Simultaneously, the lawsuit adds, Uber supposedly discovered it had been underpaying its New York City drivers and remitted tens of millions to the workers, an amount the case claims was “only a fraction of the total deductions Uber made in violation of its contracts.”
Prior to Uber paying out millions to drivers over improper pay deductions, when the company’s contracts stipulated that the workers would be paid the passenger fare minus only the service fee, the company rolled out an “Upfront Pricing” policy in April 2016 through which it purported to quote the price of rides to riders upfront in the interest of transparency. The case, however, describes this as a “scheme” that saw Uber effectively charging riders one thing and paying drivers another.
Under the “Upfront Pricing” policy, Uber’s quotes to customers in advance of trips were based on factors like the expected time and distance of the ride, but drivers’ pay was based on the trip’s actual time and distance, according to a Los Angeles Times report. The price the defendant quoted passengers was generally higher than what it paid drivers, and Uber pocketed the difference, the plaintiffs say. The case contends that this practice was explicitly forbidden by the defendant’s terms until Uber updated its contract in May 2017 to allow for upfront pricing.
The plaintiffs contend they are not bound by Uber’s arbitration clause since they are “transportation workers engaged in inter-state commerce” and thereby exempt from arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act. The suit seeks to represent two classes of Uber drivers:
- A class of arbitration-exempt drivers who worked for Uber in New York City between November 6, 2013 and May 22, 2017 and had BCF and sales tax deducted from their pay; and
- a class of arbitration-exempt New York City drivers who fell victim to Uber’s upfront pricing scheme from April 2016 to May 22, 2017.
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