Early plaintiff in Uber case challenges $100M settlement, says he feels 'utterly betrayed' by lawyer
One of the first drivers to file suit in what has become 240,000-member class action against Uber Technologies Inc. has gone on the record in opposition to a $100 million settlement of the case over the smartphone ride-sourcing app.
Saying that he felt “utterly betrayed” by class counsel Shannon Liss-Riordan, plaintiff Douglas O’Connor, with the aid of high-profile attorney Mark Geragos, made a filing in opposition to the settlement Monday, Bloomberg reports. Ben Meiselas, an attorney who works with Mark Geragos, told Bloomberg that he backs O’Connor’s claim that Liss-Riordan misled him.
O’Connor said the settlement isn’t in the best interest of Uber’s drivers. His filing follows complaints by others that the proposed settlement doesn’t change the status of drivers, who originally claimed they were misclassified as independent contractors when they actually are employees, and doesn’t pay them enough for mileage and expenses. USA Today and the Wall Street Journal report that most drivers would receive only about $24 from the proposed settlement while Liss-Riordan would earn at least $21 million.
“It is shocking for an out-of-state attorney to so blatantly sell out the California class of drivers,” Geragos along with attorneys Brian Kabateck and Christopher Hamner wrote to Judge Chen, the Wall Street Journal noted in an opinion piece.
Shannon Liss-Riordan. ABA Journal file photo by Carl Tremblay.
In response, Liss-Riordan noted in an email to Bloomberg that O’Connor was not certified as a lead plaintiff—although he was one of the first two plaintiffs to file suit in 2013—but was kept in the loop by her firm. “He has apparently been recruited by the lawyers who are launching these attacks on me—lawyers who do not practice in this field, and who I believe may have a history of jumping on big cases and making some noise so they can try to get a piece of it,” she wrote.
Nonetheless, if the judge in the San Francisco case sees a problem with the settlement, she is ready to address it, Liss-Riordan said.
The Wall Street Journal opinion piece makes this assessment: “The lawyers who launched competing cases against Uber want to shake down Uber for even more and then cash in themselves,” the Wall Street Journal wrote. “This is how the plaintiff bar defines ‘sharing economy.’”
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Uber to pay up to $100M to settle claims of misclassification by drivers in 2 states”
Updated May 19 to include comment from Meiselas and coverage from the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
