Key Points

  • The Appellate Division, Second Department, reversed a Queens County order that had granted summary judgment to Uber USA, LLC, Rasier-NY, LLC, and Uber Technologies, Inc.
  • The panel held that the Uber companies failed to eliminate all triable issues of fact as to whether the driver, M. GS Talukder, was acting as an independent contractor rather than as their employee when the collision occurred.
  • The court restated that a contract designating a person an independent contractor is considered but is not dispositive, and that worker status for tort liability is usually a factual issue for the jury.
  • Because the companies failed to make their prima facie showing, the motion should have been denied regardless of the sufficiency of the plaintiff's opposition papers.
  • The order was reversed on the law, with costs, in a decision and order in which all four justices concurred.

A New York appeals court on Wednesday revived a woman's personal-injury claims against three Uber companies, holding that the companies had not proved that the driver involved in her crash worked as an independent contractor rather than as their employee.

The Appellate Division, Second Department, reversed an order that Frederick D.R. Sampson of the Supreme Court, Queens County, entered. That order had granted summary judgment to Uber USA, LLC, Rasier-NY, LLC, and Uber Technologies, Inc. The four-justice panel issued a decision and order that names no authoring justice and denied the companies' motion outright.

The ruling puts the Uber companies back in the lawsuit brought by Lucy Rivera, who seeks damages from the driver, M. GS Talukder, and from the three companies. Whether the companies can be held responsible for Talukder's alleged negligence depends on the driver's working relationship with them, and the panel held that the companies had not eliminated the factual disputes over that relationship. The panel decided the appeal on the strength of the companies' own showing, without weighing Rivera's evidence.

According to the decision, Rivera was in a motor vehicle that collided with a vehicle Talukder owned and operated. She alleged that Talukder was working as an employee or agent of the companies, which the court called "the Uber defendants," at the time of the collision.

After discovery ended, the Uber companies moved for summary judgment. They argued that Talukder was acting as an independent contractor when the collision occurred and that they therefore could not be held vicariously liable for the driver's alleged negligence. Rivera opposed the motion. Sampson granted it in an order entered March 12, 2025, and Rivera appealed.

The panel began with respondeat superior, the doctrine that holds employers liable for torts their employees commit on the job. "The doctrine of respondeat superior renders [an employer] vicariously liable for a tort committed by his or her [employee] within the scope of employment," the court wrote, quoting an earlier decision, Gaudreau v Cucuzzo.

The doctrine stops at the line between employees and contractors. The panel wrote, quoting the same case, that "an employer who hires an independent contractor, as distinguished from an employee. . . , is not liable for the negligent acts of the independent contractor." That rule was the basis of the Uber companies' motion.

Control decides which side of that line a worker falls on. "Broadly speaking," the panel wrote, an employee is someone who works for another "subject to substantial control, not only over the results produced but also over the means used to produce the results."

The court then listed five of the factors relevant to assessing control. Those factors ask whether the worker "(1) worked at his [or her] own convenience, (2) was free to engage in other employment, (3) received fringe benefits, (4) was on the employer's payroll and (5) was on a fixed schedule."

The panel also addressed paperwork that labels a worker a contractor. "The fact that a contract exists designating a person as an independent contractor is to be considered, but is not dispositive," the court wrote, citing Brielmeier v Leal. The decision does not describe the evidence the Uber companies submitted, and it does not say whether they relied on such a contract.

The panel added a rule about who resolves the question. "Whether an actor is an independent contractor or an employee for the purposes of tort liability is usually a factual issue for the jury," the court wrote, again quoting Gaudreau.

Applying those principles, the panel held that the Uber companies "failed to establish their prima facie entitlement to judgment as a matter of law." The companies fell short, the court held, because they "failed to eliminate all triable issues of fact as to whether Talukder was acting as an independent contractor, and not as their employee, when the collision occurred."

For that conclusion the panel cited Bandele v Rasier-NY, LLC, along with Gaudreau and Rivera v Fenix Car Serv. Corp. It also cited, under a "see also" signal, Matter of Vega, a case involving Postmates Inc. and the Commissioner of Labor.

Because the companies' own papers failed, the panel held that Sampson "should have denied the Uber defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint insofar as asserted against them regardless of the sufficiency of the plaintiff's opposition papers." For that rule the court cited Winegrad v New York Univ. Med. Ctr. Under that holding, the strength or weakness of Rivera's opposition played no part in the outcome.

The panel reversed the order "on the law, with costs." Colleen D. Duffy, J.P., and Deborah A. Dowling, Janice A. Taylor and Laurence L. Love, JJ., concurred. The decision was issued under docket number 2025-03920 and reported as 2026 NY Slip Op 06157.

Rivera was represented by Lambros Y. Lambrou of The Lambrou Law Firm, P.C. The respondents were represented by Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker, LLP, with Michael R. Huston, Jacob J. Taber and Samantha J. Burke of Perkins Coie LLP as of counsel. Huston and Burke appeared pro hac vice.

With the motion denied, the claims against the Uber companies remain pending. The caption also notes a third-party action that the decision does not describe. Talukder's status remains unresolved, and under the rule the panel quoted, that question usually goes to a jury. The slip opinion states that it is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication in the Official Reports.