Uber Increases ‘Safe Rides’ Class Action Settlement Payout to $32.5M

Seeking a federal judge’s approval, Uber has upped the amount of money offered to resolve a class action lawsuit regarding its “safe ride” fee.

Plaintiffs in this Uber class action lawsuit submitted a new settlement for court approval on June 1. Judge Jon S. Tigar rejected an earlier version of the settlement over concerns that it would not treat all Class Members fairly.

The plaintiffs take issue with Uber’s charging of a “safe rides” fee. Uber claims the fee covers the cost of its “industry leading” background checks for drivers. But plaintiffs say that Uber does not actually perform any meaningful background check, and that the company’s procedures are “woefully inadequate” compared to those of other commercial transportation providers.

The terms of the current Uber safe rides settlement require Uber to set up a $32.5 million settlement fund – $4 million more than the company agreed to in the earlier version of the settlement that was rejected by the court. Uber will also remove from its promotional materials the term “safe rides fee” and other terms related to driver background checks.

The Uber safe rides fee class action lawsuit began in December 2014, when plaintiffs Bryon McKnight and Matthew Philliben brought claims against Uber for violation of several California consumer protection laws. Philliben eventually voluntarily dismissed his own claims against Uber in May of this year.

Plaintiff Andrea Pappey filed her own similar Uber class action lawsuit a few weeks after McKnight and Philliben. She was later replaced in that action by four other named plaintiffs. The court related the two cases in February 2015.

Uber agreed to an earlier version of the settlement in February 2016. Terms of that settlement would have required Uber to compensate customers who used the Uber app to hail a ride at least once during the Class period. Uber’s total expenditure under that version of the settlement would have been $28.5 million.

The settlement also allowed Uber to continue charging the fee at issue, renaming it from “safe rides fee” to “booking fee.”

Judge Tigar declined to grant preliminary approval of that settlement in August 2016, finding that it improperly granted preferential treatment to certain Class Members. The judge was dissatisfied that the settlement did not distinguish between Class Members who paid no safe ride fees and others who did. Offering the same remedy to all those Class Members benefitted some at the expense of others, the judge said.

The current version of the Uber safe rides settlement excludes riders who did not pay the safe rides fee. Proposed Class Members now include all persons in the U.S. who between Jan. 1, 2013 and Jan. 31, 2016 hailed a ride from one of Uber’s ride services using the Uber app or website for which they paid a safe rides fee.

Top Class Actions will post updates to this class action settlement as they become available. For the latest updates, keep checking TopClassActions.com or sign up for our free newsletter. You can also receive notifications when this article is updated by using your free Top Class Actions account and clicking the “Follow Article” button at the top of the post.

Plaintiffs’ counsel includes Robert Ahdoot, Tina Wolfson and Theodore W. Maya of Ahdoot & Wolfson PC, Mike Arias and Alfredo Torrijos of Arias Sanguinetti Stahle & Torrijos LLP, and Nicholas Coulson of Liddle & Dubin PC.

The Uber Safe Rides Fee Class Action Lawsuit is Byron McKnight, et al. v. Uber Technologies Inc., Case No. 3:14-cv-05615, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

UPDATE: September 2017, the Uber safe rides fee class action settlement is now open. Click here to file a claim.