New York City law firm Held & Hines LLP has been ordered to immediately cease soliciting and charging drivers for Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. a fee to receive their share of a $328 million settlement. This significant payout was agreed upon by the companies in November. The firms decided to compensate New York drivers as part of a back-pay dispute settlement. The directive from the government came as the law firm was charging drivers a fee to access their rightful earnings from this settlement.
“Asking hardworking drivers, many of whom are immigrants and people of color, to pay a fee for their rightfully earned wages is unacceptable,” said state Attorney General Letitia James (D). The law firm was accused by James of exploiting rideshare drivers by making them pay for a service they should not have to pay for – to receive their own earnings.
As a reminder, the legal dispute reaches back to the previous year when certain drivers for Uber and Lyft were granted a considerable payout sum due to a back-pay dispute with the companies. Thus, the latest issue of Held & Hines LLP charging drivers to help them get their settlement earnings appears to be parasitic on the previous case.
The order to stop these actions came in the form of a cease-and-desist letter, where failure to abide by could result in legal action against the firm. Held & Hines had been charging a fee to facilitate the procurement of these settlement funds for the drivers, an act the Attorney General deemed as unjust and to be in violation of the rights of the drivers to receive their due without additional fees.
This detailed information was uncovered in a recent legal news report, and could form part of a wider discourse on the rights of drivers in the rideshare industry, specifically considering drivers for companies like Uber and Lyft.