Uber Not Liable: Driver Was Not Logged in at Time of Accident, Florida Court Rules

A Florida man may have been an occasional driver for Uber, the ride-hailing company, but he was not working at the time that he struck and killed his former girlfriend, and Uber is not liable for the wrongful death, a Florida appeals court said Thursday.

“Castillo was logged off the Uber app for nearly five months prior to the date of the accident and driving his own car after having completed a personal errand when the accident occurred,” a three-judge panel of Florida’s 3^rd District Court of Appeals wrote in the opinion. “Under this set of facts, the trial court correctly found no issue of material fact and correctly entered summary judgment in favor of Uber.”

The wrongful death suit stemmed from a tragic incident in 2017. Driver Orlando Baez Castillo had picked up his daughter from school and dropped her at Arlevys Molina’s home. Molina was his former partner and the mother of his daughter, the court explained. As Castillo left the south Florida home, Molina reportedly ran into the street. Castillo’s car was in reverse, and he struck and killed the woman.

Two years later, a representative of the Molina estate, Yesit Campo, filed a wrongful death suit and named Castillo, Uber Technologies Inc. and GEICO General Insurance Co. as defendants. Campo later dropped GEICO from the litigation.

The trial court in Miami-Dade County granted summary in favor of Uber, finding that Uber could not be held vicariously liable.

The estate appealed, but the appeals court panel upheld the decision. Uber had submitted its expert’s report showing that Castillo was not logged into the Uber driver app at the time, so was not at work, the court explained.

“Florida law is well settled that an employer is not vicariously liable for an employee’s actions when the employee is acting outside the scope of his or her employment,” the judges noted. “An employee is not acting within the scope of his or her employment ‘if it can be found that the employee had ‘stepped away’ from or abandoned the employer’s business at the time the tort was committed,'” the court added, citing a 1983 ruling by the 3^rd District Court of Appeals.

The estate argued that a dispute of material fact existed over whether Castillo was actually logged out of the app, partly because he had two cell phones and may have used the second one to log in.

But the court said that was mere speculation and Uber’s internal records showed that he had not logged in for months. He was driving his personal vehicle on a personal errand at the time, the judges noted.

It’s possible that the estate will ask the Florida Supreme Court to review the case.

The 3rd DCA decision came three months after another win for Uber, also involving a smartphone app. A New Jersey appeals court found that a couple injured in an accident cannot sue Uber because of the terms on an Uber Eats app. Read more here.