From the SF Gate

(05-06) 18:17 PDT SAN FRANCISCO — Attorneys for Uber said the ride-sharing company was not liable for the New Year’s Eve death of 6-year-oldSofia Liu in San Francisco, because the driver was an independent contractor and had no reason to be actively engaged with the app at the time.

“Uber and its affiliated companies sympathize with the Liu family and understand their desire for redress for their loss and their injuries,” attorneys said in a response to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family in San Francisco Superior Court. “However, the companies did not cause this tragic accident.”
The crash that killed Sofia happened at 8 p.m. when Syed Muzaffar, driving a Honda sport utility vehicle, failed to yield to the girl, her mother and brother as they crossed Polk Street in a crosswalk near the Civic Center, San Francisco police and prosecutors said.

Sofia’s mother and brother were hurt, but survived. Muzaffar was arrested on suspicion of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence and failure to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk, but has not been charged. He no longer drives for Uber.

The girl’s family sued Muzaffar and Uber in January, alleging that Muzzafar – who was an Uber contractor at the time of the crash – was logged on to the company’s UberX app when he fatally struck Sofia and was waiting to receive and accept a ride request. The driver’s attorney has also said he was between fares.

Uber’s response, filed Thursday, said Muzaffar was “never an employee, agent, joint venture or partner of Uber.” Attorneys said he had, however, passed a background check. Moreover, they said he had not been carrying a fare, heading to pick up a fare or responding to a request to pick up a fare – and thus had no reason to be interacting with his smartphone.

“The only information displayed on the screen was a GPS-generated map with his location – akin to the information displayed by a smartphone map application,” lawyers wrote.

Uber’s attorneys also claimed that Uber should not be held responsible because the company primarily provides services and not products.

The family’s lawsuit called this a narrow view of how companies like Uber do business. Christopher Dolan, the family’s attorney, said the phone-based interface that drivers use to find fares contributed to Sofia’s death and the injuries to her mother and brother.

“It’s their technology. They need to make it safe,” Dolan said in January, suggesting that a hands-free mode would bring the business into compliance with distracted-driving laws.

Last year, the California Public Utilities Commission began, among other things, requiring the companies to carry commercial liability insurance, regardless of whether the driver is personally insured. The law mandated a minimum $1 million of coverage per incident.

But experts said ambiguity remained. While the rules required Uber to have insurance covering drivers while they carried a fare or were on their way to pick one up, the regulations didn’t clarify whether other job-related activities – like checking requests for fares – were included.

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