Uber Is Spending Millions to Make It Harder for You to Sue After a Car Accident

Right now, as you read this, paid signature gatherers are fanning out across California with clipboards, asking you to sign a petition for something called the "Protecting Automobile Accident Victims from Attorney Self-Dealing Act." The name sounds consumer-friendly. The reality is anything but. This ballot initiative, bankrolled by Uber to the tune of at least $12 million so far, would amend the California Constitution to cap what your attorney can earn representing you after a car accident — and in doing so, could make it nearly impossible for ordinary Californians to find a lawyer willing to take their case at all.

The measure, officially designated Initiative #25-0022, needs approximately 875,000 valid signatures to qualify for the November 2026 ballot. If it passes, it would require that car accident victims receive at least 75% of the total damages recovered, effectively capping attorney fees and all case costs at 25%. It would also limit the amount that medical providers can recover for treating accident victims, tying reimbursement rates to Medicare and Medi-Cal payment schedules rather than the actual cost of care. And it would ban referral arrangements between personal injury law firms and medical providers.

On paper, guaranteeing that 75% of a recovery goes to the injured person might sound like a win. But here is what that math actually looks like in practice. Personal injury attorneys work on contingency, meaning they front all the costs of a case — hiring expert witnesses, obtaining medical records, paying for accident reconstruction, filing fees — and only get paid if they win. In a moderately complex car accident case, those costs alone can run tens of thousands of dollars. When you squeeze attorney fees and costs into a 25% cap, many cases simply become economically impossible to take. An attorney cannot spend $30,000 in costs on a case where the total fee would be $25,000. The result is not that lawyers make less money. The result is that injured people cannot find a lawyer at all.

This is not speculation. Consider who would be most affected. Wealthy individuals can always hire attorneys on an hourly basis, often at rates of $500 to $800 per hour or more. The contingency fee system exists precisely so that working-class and middle-class Californians can access the same quality of legal representation without paying anything out of pocket. A constitutional cap on contingency fees would create a two-tiered justice system: full representation for those who can afford hourly rates, and no representation for everyone else.

The initiative's medical reimbursement limits are equally troubling. By tying what medical providers can recover to Medicare rates — which are often a fraction of what care actually costs — the measure threatens to undermine a treatment model that millions of accident victims depend on. Many injured Californians receive medical care on a lien basis, meaning the doctor agrees to treat now and get paid later from the settlement or verdict. If providers know their recovery will be slashed to Medicare rates regardless of the complexity of care they provided, fewer will be willing to treat accident victims on this basis. The people who will suffer most are those without health insurance, who currently rely on lien-based care as their primary path to treatment after a crash.

It is also worth examining who is behind this initiative and why. Uber is the largest single funder. As one of the largest rideshare companies in the world, Uber faces significant exposure to personal injury claims arising from accidents involving its drivers. Reducing attorney access and capping medical recovery directly benefits Uber's bottom line by driving down the value of claims against the company. Consumer Watchdog and the Consumer Attorneys of California have both come out strongly against the measure, arguing that it is designed to protect corporate interests, not accident victims.

There is a telling asymmetry written into the initiative itself. While it would cap what a plaintiff's attorney can earn at 25%, it places no limits whatsoever on what insurance companies or corporations like Uber can pay their defense attorneys. In other words, the company that hit you can hire a team of lawyers at $800 an hour and litigate your case for years — but your attorney has to operate within a fraction of that budget. This structural imbalance is not an oversight - it is the entire point.

Californians should also know that Uber has tried this playbook before. The company pushed a nearly identical initiative in Nevada, seeking a 20% cap on contingency fees in all civil cases. The Nevada Supreme Court unanimously blocked the measure from the ballot, finding that its language was misleading and confusing. The fact that Uber is now attempting the same strategy in California — but this time as a constitutional amendment, which is harder to challenge or undo — should give every voter pause.

Dozens of California attorneys have already raised over $46 million to fight the initiative, and opposition is growing among medical providers, consumer advocacy organizations, and labor groups. But the most important line of defense is an informed electorate. If someone approaches you with a clipboard asking you to sign a petition to "protect accident victims," take a moment to read the fine print. The real question this initiative poses is not whether accident victims should keep more of their recovery. Of course they should. The real question is whether a billion-dollar corporation should be allowed to rewrite the California Constitution to tilt the playing field in its own favor — and call it consumer protection while doing so.

If you have been injured in a car accident in California and have questions about your rights, contact our office for a free consultation. Understanding your legal options has never been more important.