Uber was ordered by an arbitrator to pay a Bay Area woman more than $ 1 million after he decided she was denied service repeatedly.
Mill Valley resident Lisa Irving, who is blind and uses a guide dog named Bernie, received $ 1.1 million after the referee supported the claim that she denied travel 14 times between 2016 and 2017. Uber argued that the It was the fault of the drivers, who are independent contractors, but the arbitrator concluded that the company was indebted to the Americans with Disabilities Act anyway.
“Uber’s own investigations found that these drivers intentionally denied Irving’s travels because of his guide dog,” wrote the referee in last week’s decision.
The referee considered 14 specific cases and ordered payment in all of them. Damage ranged from the statutory floor of $ 4,000 to two for $ 75,000 each. In one case, the driver was allegedly verbally abusive and Irving said he feared for his safety.
“Ms. Irving filed complaints with Uber, hoping that they would be investigated, that Uber would take further action and that Uber would report to her,” wrote the referee. “When Uber conducted an investigation, its investigators were trained, in some cases, to guide drivers to find non-discriminatory reasons for travel refusals.”
Complaints about denial of service to blind passengers based on their service animals have been around 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 a federal court in San Jose, seeking denial of service when the blind were accompanied by service animals. NFB and Uber resolved the class action case in 2016.
Irving was awarded $ 324,000 in damages. In addition, the court awarded attorney fees in excess of $ 800,000.
“We believe this is the biggest award ever awarded to a single blind claimant for repeated violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the California Unruh Act,” Irving’s lawyer said in a statement.
Bay City News Service contributed to this report.