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Comment by gravypod | Hacker News Reader

"I just didn’t buy that a company could just get away with that business model. Hire anyone with a car, facilitate everything, and have no responsibility for what happens in the cars."

If I got food sick from something I ordered off GrubHub could I sue them?

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Butwith GrubHub, you know where the food came from and can take action against the restaurant. In this case, the rider had no way to contact or hold responsible the driver, and that in addition to Uber obstructing law enforcement efforts to locate the driver is what made them liable.

Your analogy is incredibly bad. Imagine if GrubHub itself provided the menu and contracted out to semi-anonymous restaurants to cook the food; then imagine that it wasn't salmonella or the like, but rather that the cook had pissed in the food; and THEN imagine that GrubHub refused to tell the police which restaurant cooked the meal and then blatantly lied to the cops that no food from that (still unnamed) restaurant had been on GrubHub's menu for two years anyway.

In that scenario, you're damn right you could sue GrubHub; they'd be complicit in the coverup of a crime.

No, but you could if their delivery driver robbed you.

GrubHub doesn't provide the drivers. They facilitate orders. They don't have anything to do with who delivers.

That was Uber's argument too. They lost.

It's an interesting thought exercise, but I don't think GrubHub is really the same situation. The restaurants that you order from on GrubHub exist as businesses and serve food regardless if GrubHub is facilitating delivery or not. If the GrubHub driver robbed you when they showed up at your house, then yes, I would think you might be able to sue them.

if grubhub's practices meant that you received food that made you ill, you may have a case.

If the food poisoning was due to negligence, I don't see why not.

I'm curious how far this line goes, too. If I go to Subway and a worker stabs me, does Subway owe me millions? I'm really confused how Uber is responsible here.. it just seems, odd, to me.

Now, if Uber as a company promoted (in one way or another) reckless speeding for the sake of fast drop-offs, and I get hit by an Uber driver, yes I think Uber is at fault (and the driver). However, why does it sound like Uber is responsible for everything "during work hours"?

If Subway tells the cops "I won't say who it was", and they say "he hasn't worked at Subway for two years anyway" (this being a bald-faced lie), AND the medical bills from the stabbing set you back millions of dollars... damn right, Subway owes you millions. They're making themselves complicit in the crime by obstructing justice, and making it clear that Subway was OK with the stabbing.

Oh I agree completely, but you're adding to what I said. There are many here saying Subway is at fault no matter what.

Eg, if they didn't do anything wrong, the person just randomly stabbed me, many here think Subway owes me millions. What do you think?

I disagree, it seems bizarre to me because Subway can't possible know what crimes all employees might commit and somehow fight to prevent that. Right?

.. actually let me ask you this:

In what scenario should Subway not be held liable? So many here blame Subway in my scenario, when they were not even involved.. so what does a company have to do to prevent being sued by employees random, un-predictable actions?

I agree on the oddness. In my mind, the story about a highly-tracked webapp-facilitated worker committing a crime goes something like:

Crime committed -> worker details go to police -> criminal conviction | current mechanisms for direct financial restitution from criminals to crime victims.

Or maybe in the case of no criminal conviction,

Crime committed -> (messing about with police) | John Doe lawsuit against Uber -> Driver details released -> Lawsuit against driver.

Don't get me wrong, Uber just sounds like a lunatic asylum, and their conduct in this case no worse than I'd expect. But it just seems so weird that the chain of events leads to a claim against Uber. I would honestly have expected them to have thrown the driver under a bus while staying rock solid behind their terms and conditions.

Yeah that... did the driver get arrested?

> I'm curious how far this line goes, too. If I go to Subway and a worker stabs me, does Subway owe me millions? I'm really confused how Uber is responsible here.. it just seems, odd, to me.

They could be. It depends on the process involved in hiring said worker. If there are little to no checks you could argue Subway was at fault (at least partially) for not properly vetting people being brought in.

Another item is you may have missed the part where Uber obstructed justice by initially lying to the police and not correcting it until it was the primary reason they were going back to court.

It's a nuanced and contextual issue, not a "how far the line goes".

Yes, you would be smart to sue subway for millions.

If you go into subway and an employee stabs you for no good reason you sue subway

Which is weird to me. Why is a company expected to be onmicient about their employees? Do we have to do psych evals on everyone to make sure they might not do something that the company could be liable for? Why isn't law good enough here? If Subway wasn't involved, isn't the law sufficient? Eg, a person committed a crime, Subway wasn't involved.

Do you disagree?

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