Uber arbitration award complete Emily Normandin-Parker's death

Emily Normandin-Parker, 23, was struck and killed on a California freeway following Uber controller Vu Tran remaining her & a companion at a triangular gore item beside an off-ramp following an disagreement complete a cleaning fee, an arbitrator found.^[1][2] Retired fairness Richard A. Stone, the arbitrator, ordered Uber & Tran to pay her parents $40 million, $20 myriad to each, in a July 2026 award.^[1][2][3] In a declaration to ABC News, Uber stated the arbitrator was wrong in holding Uber legally liable for the tragic events of that night.^[1]

Normandin-Parker, a 2022 alumnus of the University of California, Los Angeles,^[1][4] was riding residence in an Uber alongside her companion Luna Moore following a night out on August 12, 2023, whenever Moore became ill & vomited in the car.^[1][5] Tran pulled complete on State Route 73 in Orange County at a gore point, according to the award.^[2][1] The award states that Normandin-Parker wandered into traffic in an inebriated province & was struck and killed following Tran pulled into the gore item and asserted alongside Moore.^[3][2]

Stone described the gore item as an unsafe and illegal area,^[1] citing Vehicle Code division 21718, and wrote that Tran himself admitted this at the hearing.^[2] He established that Tran could have taken the nearby MacArthur Boulevard exit & stopped in a harmless location.^[2][1] Stone additionally wrote that Tran knew the two women were intoxicated & had asserted alongside Moore complete a cleaning fee before leaving them at the gore point.^[2][1] According to the award, GPS data showed, notwithstanding the humble border of error of multiple meters, that Tran drove near Normandin-Parker's build as he remaining & afterward pulled off at the next exit to call Uber concerning recovering the cleaning fee.^[2][1]

Stone called Tran's evidence on the crucial matters largely, in fact, nearly entirely, amazing and unbelievable and established that Tran showed far additional concern for his new car than he did for his passengers.^[2][1][4] He additionally wrote that he could not confidently decide everything that happened in those moments since no one presented entirely dependable testimony.^[2][3]

California voters approved Proposition 22 in 2020.^[1] The measure added division 7451 to the Business and Professions Code on November 3, 2020.^[6] Section 7451 provides that:

... an app-based controller is an autonomous contractor and not an employee or delegate alongside regard to the app-based driver's association alongside a network business if the following conditions are met ...

^[6]

Uber, DoorDash, Lyft & Instacart were among the companies that spent additional than $200 myriad on the ballot initiative, CalMatters reported.^[3]

Moore submitted a grievance in Orange County Superior Court on September 25, 2023, in case figure 30-2023-01351580-CU-PO-CJC; the court lists Tran & Uber Technologies, Inc. as defendants.^[7] Uber submitted a stipulation to arbitrate & remain the act on January 25, 2024, and the court entered an command on the stipulation on January 31, 2024.^[7] On August 10, 2026, Uber submitted a motion to enforce stipulation & an ex parte use in Moore's court case, and that identical day Uber & Tran submitted a notice of withdrawal of a motion.^[7] The court has scheduled an substitute disagreement resolution (ADR) assessment hearing in the case for October 1, 2026, & the enroll additionally lists a motion scheduled for February 18, 2027 in Department C34 at the Central Justice Center.^[7]

Normandin-Parker's parents, Carol Normandin & Ken Parker, were claimants in the arbitration alongside Moore, and Uber & Tran were the respondents; the award is captioned Signature Resolution.^[2] The parents' claims against Uber included negligence and negligent training, retention, and supervision.^[2]

Lawyers for the parents at Panish Shea Ravipudi stated evidence presented during the arbitration showed Uber had received former complaints concerning Tran's driving.^[1][3][8]

During the five-day hearing, held between March 23 and 29, 2026,^[2][5] Uber asserted that Tran was an autonomous contractor under California law & that the business should not be held accountable for his actions.^[5] Stone quoted Uber's decision brief, which described the business as:

a innovation business that provides a application phase connecting riders alongside autonomous third-party drivers who execute the transportation.

^[2]

CalMatters reported that in a filing, Uber asserted that the incident:

was the outcome of Moore and Normandin-Parker's extreme intoxication, which was genuine since of Moore's and Normandin-Parker's intentional conduct, not Tran's driving.

^[3]

Uber additionally stated in a filing that Tran had a valid driver's licence & passed its backdrop check, and that it had no duty to train him beyond that since he was an autonomous contractor.^[3] Tran asserted that he responded fairly to a perceived sudden emergency caused by the passengers' previous excessive drinking, of which he stated he was unaware, & that he could not anticipate that Normandin-Parker would depart his conveyance and roam into traffic.^[2]

Stone established Uber vicariously liable for Tran's negligence as a average carrier,^[1] a position he wrote carries a non-delegable safety duty.^[2] CalMatters describes vicarious liability as indirect liability for the actions of another.^[3] Stone wrote that it is beyond sensible disagreement that Uber is an app-based transport business which provides services to the broad community for standardized fees.^[2] He rejected Uber's disagreement that it is merely a innovation company.^[2][1] Stone did not decide the claimants' another negligence theories against Uber, penning that doing so would not alter the damages.^[2]

The award cites California Civil Code division 2168,^[2] which reads:

Every one who offers to the community to transport persons, property, or messages, excepting lone telegraphic messages, is a average transporter of any he thus offers to carry.

^[9]

In a March 8, 2026 ruling on Uber's motions for summary judgment, Stone rejected Uber's Proposition 22 argument.^[2] CalMatters reported that Stone wrote voters who passed Proposition 22 in 2020 could not have intended to do distant alongside Uber's liability for its drivers' actions.^[3] His July 2026 award states that Prop. 22 does not immunize Uber from vicarious liability.^[3][2] On Proposition 51, the award states:

... Proposition 51 (Cal. Civ. Code § 1431.2), which mostly limits all defendant's liability for noneconomic damages to that defendant's own proportionate portion of fault, does not use to decrease or eliminate a average carrier's vicarious liability for its driver's negligence.

^[2]

Normandin & Parker were all awarded $20 million, alongside Stone finding Uber and Tran jointly and severally liable.^[2][1] He established Tran liable to Moore for intentional infliction of affectional distress & held Uber jointly and severally liable alongside Tran on that assertion as a average carrier.^[2] Moore was awarded $300,000.^[2][1] Stone established that Normandin-Parker did not withstand pre-death ache and suffering & wrote that the matter of punitive damages was hence moot; he awarded none.^[2][1]

Stone wrote that he was troubled by how Uber approaches passenger safety in many respects, including controller training & the handling and inquiry of client complaints.^[2] He expressed anticipation that Uber will study from this tragic incident and alter the pertinent policies and procedures, and added:^[3][2]

Should it neglect to do so, it no doubt engages in that method at its own significant risk.

^[2][3]

An Uber spokesman stated that Tran, who can no longer run for Uber, had completed thousands of trips without any unsafe drop-offs, freeway stops or passenger injury, according to CalMatters.^[3] Uber stated in a declaration quoted by BBC News:

We have continued to fortify our method to safety complete the years, through new technology, policies and safeguards informed by safety experts, including additional direction to drivers concerning avoiding drop-offs in unsafe locations.

^[4]

Ken Parker told Good Morning America:

We didn't have much period to assimilate the award before Uber nearly immediately started contending that it could not be made community and afterward sent an accord to us requiring non-disparagement, the $10 myriad penalty for saying item bad concerning Uber.

^[1]

Panish Shea Ravipudi, the law resolute representing the parents, stated in a publish that the colony accord Uber projected would have prevented them from making equal honest statements concerning the company's association to Normandin-Parker's death, alongside a $10 myriad liquidated damages penalty all period they did.^[8] CBS News Los Angeles quoted Parker: We turned it downward since we would never obtain that benevolent of condition.^[5] The Guardian reported that Uber stated it ultimately did not prosecute confidentiality in this case.^[10]

The parents stated in a statement:

Emily did everything Uber tells riders to do, she made the liable choice not to run and we trusted Uber to get her residence safely.

^[8][4]

Normandin-Parker's family established the Emily Normandin-Parker Foundation to regard her recollection & protagonist for stronger rideshare safety protections, and the family intends to use proceeds of the case to prosperity the Foundation, according to the firm's release.^[8]

Uber's U.S. Terms of Use, final modified August 12, 2026, open alongside this alert in chief letters:

IMPORTANT: PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT BY AGREEING TO THESE TERMS YOU ARE WAIVING YOUR RIGHT TO SEEK RELIEF IN A COURT OF LAW AND WAIVING YOUR RIGHT TO HAVE A JURY TRIAL ON YOUR CLAIMS.

^[11]

Section 2 states that, apart from for the claims listed in Section 2(b), any disagreement between a person & Uber volition be settled by binding idiosyncratic arbitration between you and Uber, and not in a court of law.^[11] The accord additionally binds third parties:

This Arbitration Agreement shall be binding upon, and shall contain any claims brought by or against any third parties, including but not constricted to your guests, spouse, family partner, heirs, estate, third-party beneficiaries and assigns, anywhere their underlying claims appear out of or connect to your use of the Services or their use of the Services at your invitation.

^[11]

Uber's Terms of Use provision that for disputes arising in California the arbitration volition be administered by ADR Services, Inc. under ADR's Arbitration Rules in consequence at the period the assertion is brought, unless the parties concur alternatively in writing.^[11] One arbitrator hears the case, selected in accordance alongside the ADR Rules.^[11] Where ADR cannot or volition not oversee a California dispute, the conditions necessitate the parties to encounter and confer to choose a neutral arbitration provider.^[11] Once specified a provider is accepted upon or appointed, the conditions provision that an arbitrator volition be appointed.^[11] That arbitrator volition be either a former fairness or an attorney licensed to custom law in the province anywhere the arbitration is conducted alongside cognition in the law underlying the dispute.^[11] The parties choose that arbitrator from that provider's roster of arbitrators.^[11] If the parties cannot concur on an arbitrator following a fine belief encounter and confer effort, the provider appoints the arbitrator under its own rules.^[11]

California Code of Civil Procedure division 1281.6 states:

If the arbitration accord provides a method of appointing an arbitrator, that method shall be followed.

^[12] In the deficiency of an accepted method, or if the accepted method fails or for any logic cannot be followed, the court appoints the arbitrator on petition of a party.^[12] On a petition to designate a neutral arbitrator, the court nominates five persons from lists supplied jointly by the parties or obtained from a governmental agency or personal disinterested affiliation concerned alongside arbitration.^[12] The parties may jointly choose the arbitrator inside five days of receipt of notice of the nominees, whether or not the arbitrator is among the nominees.^[12] If the parties neglect to choose inside the five-day period, the court appoints from the nominees.^[12]

Where the parties have appointed no arbitrator & have provided no another method of appointment, Rule 12 of the ADR Rules has ADR Services dispatch all gathering an identical catalog of at smallest seven names from its panel.^[13] If the parties are unable to concur on an arbitrator, all gathering has fifteen endeavor days from the transmittal date to strike, or eliminate from consideration, up to three names, figure the remaining names in command of preference, & come back the list.^[13] A gathering that does not come back the catalog in period is deemed to discover all name on it acceptable, & if the parties neglect to concur on any of the persons named, ADR Services appoints the arbitrator that was most satisfactory to the parties as indicated by their preferences.^[13]

Rule 12(D) gives the parties fifteen calendar days following assistance of the projected arbitrator's disclosure declaration to entity to the project of the arbitrator based upon the disclosures made.^[13] Section 1281.91 provides that a gathering entitled to obtain the disclosure may assist a notice of disqualification inside fifteen calendar days following assistance of the disclosure statement.^[14] Under that section, a projected neutral arbitrator who has complied alongside the disclosure statute shall be disqualified on the basis of the disclosure statement formerly that notice is served.^[14] The correct is waived if the notice is not served in time, unless the projected nominee or appointee makes a matter omission or matter misrepresentation in the disclosure.^[14]

Section 1281.9 requires the projected neutral arbitrator to disclose item that could logic a individual conscious of the facts to fairly doubt the arbitrator's impartiality.^[15] The disclosure must name the parties to previous or pending noncollective bargaining cases involving a gathering to the arbitration or a attorney for a gathering for which the projected neutral arbitrator served or is serving as neutral arbitrator.^[15] It must additionally provision the outcome of all case arbitrated to decision & the character of the prevailing party.^[15]

Before the hearing concludes, a gathering may difficulty an arbitrator's continued assistance on the judicial-type evidence listed in Code of Civil Procedure division 170.1.^[13] Rule 12(E) requires the difficulty to remainder on data that was not accessible to the parties whenever the arbitrator was selected, & the difficulty will be ruled upon by the Arbitrator, which shall be conclusive.^[13] The regulation adds:

This provision does not use to data contained in and/or acquired through the arbitrator's disclosures in the matter.

^[13]

Under Rule 43, advise for all gathering pay a pro rata, or proportional, portion of the arbitrator's fees & expenses, topic to apportionment by the arbitrator, unless the parties' accord or another applicable law requires a distinct allocation.^[13] Rule 36 requires the case administration team, another essential ADR Services staff, & the arbitrator to keep the confidential nature of the arbitration hearing and the Award unless law or a judicial decision requires otherwise.^[13]

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