Lyft agreed to increase its proposed settlement with its 163,000 California drivers to $27 million. That more than doubles the earlier $12 million offer.
However, it is still unclear whether the drivers are employees or independent contractors.
Lyft claims that it is adding provisions to make it clearer that the drivers are independent contractors, but the drivers don’t appear to have any more control than they did before the settlement. Lyft has agreed to different mechanisms for shutting some drivers out of its app, but that does not really bear on the employee/independent contractor issue.
U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria still has to approve the settlement.
The case is Cotter et al. v. Lyft Inc. et al., case number 3:13-cv-04065, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.
