Judge rules that disabled passengers can sue Uber in discrimination lawsuit due to drivers refusing to accommodate service animals

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Blind Californians accuse the ride-sharing company Uber of discriminating against disabled passengers with service dogs. A federal magistrate has reviewed teh evidence and will allow a lawsuit to move forward. One rights advocate says the ruling sets a precedent for holding technology companies like Uber accountable under civil rights laws.

In a decision made public in April of 2015, U.S. Magistrate Nathanael Cousins of San Francisco, California, said the National Federation of the Blind in California can proceed with a statewide suit on behalf of its members.

The lawsuit alleges that many Uber drivers refuse to take passengers with service animals. In one specific incident, the suit alleges, a driver agreed via the Uber system to pick up two men and take them to a destination, but when the driver arrived and saw a service dog, he shouted at the two passengers by stating “No dogs,” then cursed at the passengers, ignored an attempt at an explanation and sped away.

In March of 2014, the suit further alleges, an Uber driver picked up a blind woman in but then locked her service animal guide dog in the trunk of the car and ignored her pleas to release the animal until she was dropped off at her destination. Uber has also charged some disabled passengers cancellation fees after similar incidents, refunding those fees only after the passengers filed written complaints, the suit states.

Federal law requires taxis and other private transportation services, and arguably Uber drivers, to carry a disabled passenger’s service animal. Uber says that any driver who refuses to carry a service animal “will be deactivated from the Uber platform,” but the lawsuit makes it clear that there is an issue to investigate. The blind passengers and the advocacy group representing them say the company doesn’t appear to be enforcing those policies.

the judge ruled that an individual does not need to have suffered one of these incoidents to be able to sue, because even the knowledge of these incidents can affect a disabled person. For example, one of the individual plaintiffs, a Bay Area man who said the company’s practices deterred him, “does not need to use Uber’s services and risk being turned away when he has knowledge that disabled individuals with service animals have been turned away.”

Uber does have an argument for the court to consider that could prove a viable excuse for Uber’s actions, but only the lawsuit’s resolution will prove this justified or not: Uber argues that it is not a “public accommodation” covered by disability laws because it only enables would-be passengers to get rides yet does not itself provide transportation services. But the judge said the suit adequately alleged that the company was in the “travel service” business, regardless of whether Uber actually provided the rides itself.

The ruling will help to establish that “new technology companies like Uber are subject to the same … civil rights laws as other companies that have more traditional business models,” said Larry Paradis, executive director of the nonprofit Disability Rights Advocates, the organization which represents the plaintiffs.

“The Uber app is built to expand access to transportation options for all, including users with visual impairments and other disabilities,” the company Uber said in a statement. “It is Uber’s policy that driver partners are expected to comply with local, state and federal laws regarding the transportation of service animals, and we have consistently communicated this policy to drivers nationwide.”