![handle is hein.journals/jlwmby2021 and id is 1 raw text is: MOBILE-BASED TRANSPORTATION
COMPANIES, MANDATORY
ARBITRATION, AND THE AMERICANS
WITH DISABILITIES ACT
TAMAR MESHEL
Cite as: Tamar Meshel, Mobile-Based Transportation Companies,
Mandatory Arbitration, and the Americans with Disabilities Act,
2021 J. L. & MOB. 1.
This manuscript may be accessed online at https://futurist.law.umich.edu
and at https://repository.law.umich.edu/jlm/.
Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and similar mobile-based transportation network
companies (TNCs) have been involved in numerous legal battles in multiple
jurisdictions. One contested issue concerns whether TNC drivers are
employees or independent contractors. Uber recently lost this battle to some
extent in the UK,1 but won it in California.2 Another issue concerns the
TNCs' use of mandatory (pre-dispute) arbitration clauses in their standard
form service agreements with both drivers and passengers. These arbitration
clauses purport to obligate such future plaintiffs to resolve any dispute with
the defendant TNC outside of court and, typically, on an individual rather
than a class basis. TNCs have had mixed success enforcing arbitration
clauses contained in service agreements with their drivers under the Federal
T Assistant Professor, University of Alberta Faculty of Law.
1. Uber BV and others v. Aslam and others, [2021] UKSC 5. The UK Supreme
Court decided that Uber drivers are workers under English employment law, rather
than self-employed independent contractors. The Court stopped short of finding the
drivers are employees, which would have afforded them more rights. In Canada, the
Supreme Court has recently struck down the arbitration clause in Uber's service
agreement with the plaintiff driver, who claimed to be an employee rather than an
independent contractor. While the Court did not determine the employment issue, it
found the arbitration clause to be unconscionable, leaving Uber to argue the merits of the
dispute in the courts rather than in arbitration. Uber Technologies Inc. v. Heller, [2020]
S.C.R. 16 (Can.).
2. Kate Conger, Uber and Lyft Drivers in California Will Remain Contractors,
N.Y. TIMES (Nov. 7, 2020), hlttpsjLwwn w n oimesonOg2020I1/4/technoloz ornia
-u1ber-1yft-prop-22.html.
1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jlwmby2021&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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