Uber wants to cap attorney fees after crashes. Trial lawyers, scholars oppose it

A proposed ballot measure backed by a $12 million campaign war chest from Uber is drawing a heated response from trial lawyers who say the tech giant is seeking immunity for liability from crashes caused by its drivers.

But Uber is arguing the measure seeks to protect Californians from predatory “billboard lawyers” and doctors who might inflate medical bills with unnecessary procedures and take too big a share from victims’ legal settlements.

The measure would cap attorney fees, including expenses, at 25% of the amount recovered through litigation or a settlement. It would apply to all car-crash litigation, not just cases involving ride-share companies.

The Uber-backed coalition supporting the measure, called “A More Affordable California, Sponsored by Uber,” seeks to place it on the November 2026 ballot. To do so, supporters must gather signatures from nearly 875,000 registered voters. “

Californians deserve a system that prioritizes victims over billboard lawyers,” Adam Blinick, director of Uber Public Policy and Communications for the U.S. and Canada, said in a statement to The Sacramento Bee. Uber officials argue the measure would put more money in the pockets of car accident victims, but wouldn’t dissuade lawyers from taking good cases.

But two academics who study courthouse access are raising concerns about the measure.

Lawyers working on contingency fees are the only way Californians who can’t pay hundreds of dollars an hour for legal representation can sue if harmed beyond insurance payouts, two law school professors wrote in a recent column opposing Uber’s measure. Capping the fees, even at 25%, will drive attorneys away from taking cases, the professors argued.

“In reality, Uber’s ballot initiative won’t protect victims, it will muzzle them,” Nora Freeman Engstrom, a Stanford law professor and director of the school’s Center on the Legal Profession, and Brianne Holland-Stergar, from the University of Montana School of Law, wrote in the November op-ed published by The Bee.

The Consumer Attorneys of California, an advocacy group for the interests of trial attorneys, is not only fighting the Uber-backed ballot measure, but it has introduced three proposed ballot measures of its own targeting Uber. One of those measures would cancel Uber’s fee-cap measure in the event voters pass it, should all the measures end up on the November ballot.

“Uber has launched an all-out assault on consumer rights because they don’t want to pay the price of their own negligence,” the group wrote in a social media post announcing its ballot measure campaigns. It’s unclear how much cash he group will put behind its proposed measures. A spokesperson and a lawyer whose name appeared on the ballot measure paperwork did not respond to requests for comment this week.

What’s clear, however, is that trial-lawyer spending against the proposed fee cap is already heating up. A coalition called Consumer Attorneys of California Initiative Defense Political Action Committee, reported giving $30 million this month to a group opposing the Uber-backed initiative, state records show.

Lawyers, Uber at odds in federal court, too

Uber is a formidable entity in ballot measure fights, having been one of the technology companies that spent a record $200 million in 2020 to pass a ballot measure preventing its employees from unionizing.

This year’s bevy or proposed ballot measures on both sides are one front in a pitched political war between trial lawyers and the ride-share company, who are also facing off in federal court over sexual assault claims against Uber drivers. In a Monday court filing, the Consumer Attorneys of California accused Uber of using a subpoena in that lawsuit to try to penetrate and sabotage its political operation. Uber previously accused trial attorneys in that case of leaking sealed court records to The New York Times.

The ballot measure follows Uber’s success this year in passing legislation that reduced some of its insurance costs in a deal that also opened the door for labor unions to organize Uber and Lyft drivers. Uber spokespeople say state law continues to require ride-share companies to carry $1 million liability policies for accidents caused by its drivers — something they say has made fares in California among the highest in the nation, with a third of each fare going to cover insurance.

The legislative deal to lower Uber’s insurance rates came together late in the 2025 session, according to Politico, becoming public in August and receiving Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature in October. Soon afterward, on Nov. 10, the ride-share company filed its ballot initiative.

The company has continued shaping its political messaging around affordability — a frequently invoked goal in both California and national politics going into 2026 — as demonstrated by the new committee’s name. On Nov. 12, the committee reported a $12 million contribution from Uber. So far it has not listed any initiatives other than the ballot measure capping attorney fees.

The measure also takes aim at what medical expenses can be included in lawsuits over car accidents, in an effort, according to the company’s spokespeople, to prevent healthcare providers from inflating bills or prescribing unnecessary procedures. It would tie treatment costs to national insurance databases and prices set by Medicare and MediCal, and set limits on what type of procedure can be considered medically necessary.

“Capping attorney fees, banning kickbacks, and ending inflated medical billing are common-sense reforms that will protect auto-accident victims and lower costs, and we’re confident voters will agree,” Blinick, the Uber official, said in his statement.

But Engstrom, the legal scholar, said that there are better legislative fixes to “medical buildup,” the concept of inflating doctor bills to sweeten a legal settlement. “If the company is worried about medical buildup,” she wrote The Bee in an email, “there are specific and targeted ways to address that problem, short of decimating people’s ability to obtain legal representation.”

In their column, the professors suggested alternative reforms to the contingency fee system to fix abuses, such as public databases showing how long it takes a particular attorney or firm to conclude its cases on average, and what percentage of any settlements or damages end up with the clients themselves. Such measures would increase competition by allowing accident victims to pick and choose, the professors suggested in a recent paper.

One man’s story

As Uber’s campaign for its ballot measure accelerates, it might feature stories like that of Stephen Hanks, a 62-year-old Los Angeles resident. An Uber spokesperson directed a reporter to Hanks, who said he was not being paid by the ballot measure campaign but had offered to share his story to aid the effort.

Four years ago, Hanks was rear ended by an Uber driver. The crash caused damage to his shoulder and exacerbated a previous injury in his neck, he said. After connecting with a law firm he declined to name, Hanks was referred to a doctor who conducted a series of treatments that did not work before ultimately ordering a surgery that fixed Hanks’ shoulder injury and assuaged his pain, though he told The Bee his neck has continued to trouble him.

Hanks said he believes the doctor ordered those treatments in order to build up his medical bills, not to avoid surgery, he said. The procedure he described, platelet-rich plasma injections, is increasingly widely used to treat muscular injuries, according to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, though it’s still considered an investigational procedure by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Hanks was shocked to find he owed $160,000 in medical bills, he said, but assuaged when his lawyers eventually secured him a $290,000 settlement from the driver’s insurance company. But then he was shocked anew as he watched most of that money go to the attorneys and doctors, he said. Three years after his car crash, Hanks was left with a $70,000 payment. Hanks’ law firm initially tried to take a 40% fee, he said, but dropped that to 33% when he complained.

“I’m grateful for what I got,” Hanks said, “but they drew this out as long as they could have.” Hanks believes Uber’s ballot measures would give people more certainty they’re getting the appropriate treatment from doctors and no more, he said. He said he does not believe a 25% cap on attorney fees is high enough to dissuade them from taking cases, but does believe it would drive lawyers to be more discerning. He does believe people should sue Uber if they’re hurt by a crash involving its drivers and insurance falls short, he said.

“You deserve to be compensated if you’re hurt,” he said.

Already, Engstrom and Holland-Stergar wrote in their op-ed, many people who would be eligible for compensation for injuries can’t find representation because their case doesn’t look lucrative enough to attract a firm. After a Bee reporter recounted Hanks’ story to her, Engstrom wondered whether a firm would have taken his case for 25%.

“If Uber had its way, would this individual have gotten top-flight medical care and then pocketed a payment of $70,000 to boot?” she asked, “or, would he have been unable to obtain legal representation?”