Law Practice
Mar. 17, 2015
The law of the sharing economy
As a recent misclassification case against ride-sharing service Lyft shows, our labor laws were written for a different century and are simply "outmoded."
Michael A. Troncoso
Managing Counsel
UC Office of General Counsel
From 2011 to 2013, Michael served as chief counsel and chief of public policy in the California attorney general's office. Views expressed here are his alone. He is UC's cybersecurity counsel.
Last week, a federal judge issued perhaps the most significant legal decision yet about the sharing economy. Cotter v. Lyft Inc., CV13-04065 (N.D. Cal., filed Sept. 3, 2013). U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria decided to allow a jury to decide whether two Lyft drivers should have been treated as full-time employees rather than contractors.
The ruling is groundbreaking not so much for its conclusion, but for what it said about the legal status of sharing economy firms and i...For only $95 a month (the price of 2 article purchases)
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