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Three plaintiffs from California, Illinois, and Massachusetts have filed a worker misclassification lawsuit against DoorDash, claiming the company has illegally labeled them as independent contractors. In addition to a veritable laundry list of alleged labor code violations, the complaint also goes into detailed reasons for why employees are covered by legal protections and independent contractors are not, as well as the economic pressures on workers exerted by willful misclassification schemes.
Background and Allegations
DoorDash is an on-demand food delivery service that receives orders through a mobile phone “app”. The company uses more than 300,000 drivers (which they label as “Dashers”) to deliver food orders from various restaurants to consumers. Orders are assigned to Dashers via a separate app.
When a Dasher fulfills an order, he or she must drive their own personal vehicle to the assigned restaurant, pick up the food order (using a proprietary company credit card, known as the “Red Card”), deliver the order according to instructions, and notify Door Dash at every step of the process. Dashers who fail to follow these exacting procedures risk losing their jobs.
Dashers are allegedly evaluated based on four “metrics,” or criteria:
- percentage of orders fulfilled on time
- customer ratings
- percentage of orders successfully delivered
- percentage of orders the Dasher accepts
These metrics are used in a punitive manner and affect every aspect of the Dasher’s job, according to the lawsuit. The complaint notes that a Dasher can be “deactivated” if their average rating is 4.2 stars (out of 5) or lower. A completion rate of under 70 percent can also be grounds for deactivation.
Dashers are penalized when deliveries are late, regardless of traffic conditions or other circumstances that may be beyond their control. Furthermore, while they technically are not required to accept every assignment, drivers who accept only high-paying, short-distance orders can also be penalized.
The most serious allegation of this employee misclassification complaint is that prior to August 2019, the company was withholding gratuities from Dashers.
Employee Misclassification: Why it Matters
The primary reason independent contractors have been exempted from most legal labor protections is that companies recognized that such individuals typically have specialized skills that would demand higher pay. Therefore, lawmakers believed they did not require the same protections as less-skilled employees.
Independent contractors perform duties that are outside the client’s usual course of business. While they do not enjoy the same protections as employees, they are free to carry out their duties in a manner of their own choosing and according to their own schedules, without employer control. They are also free to pick and choose their assignments and set their own rates.
The present complaint claims that Dashers, who are key to DoorDash’s main business (food delivery), are subject to the same controls and restrictions as employees. Nonetheless are expected to pay their own expenses (fuel, vehicle maintenance, etc.), receive no benefits (such as medical and workers comp), while generally making less than minimum wage after expenses.
In addition to these allegations, plaintiffs in this class action accuse DoorDash of failing to provide accurate, itemized wage statements nor legally-mandated, duty-free rest and meal breaks.
The DoorDash Worker Misclassification Class Action Lawsuit is Case 3:20-cv-00666, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
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19 thoughts onWorker Misclassification Lawsuit Targets DoorDash
I was deactivated because of an incorrect background report. I got a no-reply email saying that I have 10 days to dispute the report or provide additional documentation, or they will deactivate me. Received a no-reply email the same day from doordash stating that I was deactivated… no warning. The report showed an old drivers license and an old zip code. That was the only thing they had to consider. Instead of verifying that information, they chose to deactivate me. It’s been a week of trying to get reactivated and doordash won’t respond to my emails.
Doordash has a million ways to scam and con dashers customers and merchants. They lie about everything they make the rules up as they go, everything works to their favor, after they blatantly scam, lie and flat out rip people off they thumb their noses at them. The dashers get ripped off STILL constantly. I can not understand why Doordash has not been shut down, investigated thoroughly and audited. The games the absolute rude blatant scams they pull on drivers is absolutely over the top. In the days of covid 19 drivers are seriously putting themselves at risk and Door dash treats these people like a joke. The customers are not treated any better. They need to be regulated. There needs to be reasonable realistic protocols set up and followed. Obviously Doordash is not capable of making these decisions and certainly as already shown by Doordash cannot be trusted to treat and pay the dashers as they should be paid. It is NOT ACCEPTABLE for these delivery drivers to NET LESS THAN MINIMUM WAGE! AND ALL THE EXPENSE FOR MAINTENANCE ON THEIR VEHICLES. ITS A SLAP IN THE FACE ALONG WITH THE THUMBING OF THEIR NOSES TO THE PEOPLE WHO ARE ON THE FRONT LINES MAKING THOSE BILLIONS FOR THIS TRASH COMPANY.
I was deactivated due to a low completion rating (68%) and 169 completed deliveries. There is no way on earth that I declined as many as they are saying. I declined once in awhile if I knew it was a shady area. I’ve tried appealing two or three times and also talked to someone on chat – NOTHING. Doordash does not take care of its good drivers. I had a 4.98 customer satisfaction rating.
I was just deactivated for completion ratings in my defence outages and glitches in the app. The real number of not completed deliveries were 2 out of 303. Still trying to get ahold of someone via telephone, because the chats and emails aren’t helping me get reactivated… Get this during the April 17 outage I still completed my dash and didn’t get paid but was told they would pay me and fix the rating. Oh oh one more thing Its dangerous sending dashers to creepy allies and hotels…
Had a customer falsly report that they didn’t get there food when I know for a fact that they did any idea what I can do
Please add my I was also deactivated before even completing 100 deliveries due to completion rate! I didn’t even have the chance to get a accurate percentage since I only did 52 deliveries to be exact!
I want to join this lawsuit. I worked for Doordash for almost 2 years. They deactivated me for no reason. With no explanation. My rating was 3.8 and I had a 96% completion rating. I just got deactivated last week. No explanation whatsoever. That in itself is not fair. I was driving almost daily. I was at 487 deliveries. Then just deactivated. No questions asked. I appealed and was still told I was deactivated with good reason..
I was deactivated because of my driving record. They hired me 1 year ago with the same driving record as of now. They’ve taken many tips from me. I don’t think this is right. I only had a red light camera ticket back in 2014
I am in Alabama would I still qualify to join this class action? Just today received my 1099 from Doordash my envelope doesnt have a postmark…i guess to disguise they didn’t mail it by the deadline of Jan,31st? They robbed us of extra tips imo…they would also bombard you with messages that “your area is super busy” to log in and work and it wasnt really busy….and walmart pick ups and deliveries could be an entire differnt case…not really…just saying that situation was so unreal that we could not waste an hour and longer just waiting for it then delivery…was not once worth the pay but yet according to the delivery directions basically hurry and get there because the order is ready for pick up. Done with doordash!! Im not sure how many drivers there are but this will deff. become one of the very large and hopefully example setting ones…pay was
probably close to that of kathy Lee’s sweat shop! Ohhh didn’t even get to the dangerous part..example..if customer put wrong address…we drivers are the ones that found that out and through a call or text would ask us to delivery to another address..very unsafe at that point no one knows where you are if you agree to this and let me tell you my experience was door dash was fine with that.
I work for Door Dash. I feel the same way. I have been deactivated and the reactivated and then deactivated again. I am so mad about it. What can be done