The non-profit Consumer Watchdog group today condemned Uber for starting, during the holiday season, to circulate a ballot measure petition that will restrict the right of consumers injured in a car accident to full medical recovery and to have a contingency fee attorney.
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“Voters need to read what they're signing because what they are being asked to sign away is their right to full medical recovery in accidents and the right to contract with an attorney of their choice on a contingency fee basis,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog. “Uber should be ashamed of itself for circulating a ballot measure that takes away injured consumers' right to recovery and representation in all auto accident cases during the giving season. Scrooge at least felt shame.Uber's holiday gift is a lump of coal in the form of a ballot petition that strips injured people of their rights.Uber's coal-black capitalism is using its vast money and power to trick people out of their rights to representation and medical expenses when they get into an accident.”
Uber is collecting signatures in order to qualify its pending ballot measure, for which the California Attorney General's Official Title and Summaryreads:
LIMITS AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT VICTIMS' RECOVERY OF MEDICALEXPENSES AND FEES THEIR ATTORNEYS MAY RECEIVE. INITIATIVECONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT. Automobile accident victims often hire an attorney on a contingency basis, meaning the attorney receives an agreed-upon percentage of thevictim's monetary recovery if the victim wins. This measure would:
— limit the fees such attorneys may receive so victims retain at least 75% of their monetary recovery, but does not restrict fee arrangements for defendants' attorneys;
— for certain medical expenses, increase victims' burden of proof and limit the amounts they may recover; and
— prohibit certain financial arrangements between attorneys and medical providers.
Consumer Watchdog wrote Attorney General Bontaabout the impact of the measure:
“While this measure is framed as a cost-saving reform, it in fact imposes severe new barriersfor injured individuals to obtain justice:
— By capping attorney contingency fees so that clients must retain 75% of the judgmentafter costs are deducted, the measuremakes it financially impossiblefor attorneys to take on many cases-especially those with modest damages or complex liability.
— The initiativelimits medical compensationnot based on what treatment was needed, but based on narrow Medicare/Medi-Cal reimbursement formulas or the actual amount paid by insurers-even though the injured party may still owe more under a lien or receive no insurance support at all.
— It raises the burden of proof on medical liens to a”clear and convincing”standard-dramatically higher than the typical civil standard-further denying recovery to those who cannot afford to pre-pay for care or who lack insurance.
These provisions work in concert tochill legitimate claimsand make it virtually impossible for many accident victims to obtain counsel. Thereal effectof the measure is not reform-it issuppression of valid lawsuitsand the transfer of financial burdens onto Medi-Cal and taxpayer-funded systems, as the Legislative Analyst's Office fiscal impact summary makes clear.
An excellent summary of the deleterious impact of the initiative on access to justice was recently published in the Sacramento Bee. (Nora Freeman Engstrom and Brianne Holland-Stergar, “Uber's fight to lock poor plaintiffs out of the courthouse,” Sacramento Bee Opinion, November 18, 2025. Read more at:https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-ed/article312954687.html#storylink=cpy)”
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SOURCE Consumer Watchdog
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