Uber has been ordered by an arbitrator to pay a Bay Area woman more than $ 1 million after ruling that his service was repeatedly denied.
Lisa Irving, a Mill Valley resident who is blind and uses a guide dog named Bernie, was awarded $ 1.1 million after the arbitrator complained about her side and that she was denied 14 times between 2016 and 2017. Uber argued that the fault lay with the individual managers, who are independent contractors, but the arbitrator found that the company was independent of the Americans with the Disability Act.
“Uber’s own investigations found that these drivers knowingly denied Irving rides because of her guide dog,” the arbitrator wrote in last week’s ruling.
The arbitrator considered 14 specific cases and ordered payment in all. The damage ranged from the statutory floor from $ 4,000 to two for $ 75,000 each. In one case, the driver was allegedly verbally abusive and Irving said she feared for her safety.
“Irving has lodged complaints with Uber with the expectation that it would be investigated, that Uber would take further action and that Uber would report to her,” the arbitrator wrote. “When Uber conducted an investigation, the investigators were in some cases trained to coach drivers to find non-discriminatory reasons for driving denial.”
Complaints about denial of service to blind riders based on their service animals have existed since the early days of Uber’s ride-sharing service. In 2014, the National Federation of the Blind and others filed a class action lawsuit against Uber in federal court in San Jose over denial of service when blind riders were accompanied by service animals. NFB and Uber settled the class action lawsuit in 2016.
Irving was awarded $ 324,000 in damages. In addition, the court awarded her attorney fees of more than $ 800,000.
“We believe this is the largest award ever awarded to a single blind plaintiff for repeated violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Unruh Act in California,” Irving’s attorney said in a statement.
The Bay City News Service contributed to this report.