I provided insight for a Bloomberg Law article on the False Claims Act allegations brought against Lyft in a worker classification suit. A recent Nevada lawsuit claims Lyft misclassified drivers as independent contractors and defrauded the government.
The lawsuit claims Lyft’s actions violate Nevada’s False Claims Act, similar to the federal law in which it must be proven that individuals or companies “knowingly” intended to avoid paying the government.
“In order to prove a False Claims Act case, you have to show that there was some awareness … of a substantial risk of falsity. If Lyft believes that they’re really exempt from having to pay and they went through an analysis, they discussed it internally, and they had an actual belief, a subjective belief, that they didn’t have to pay this, then you can’t prove the knowledge component of a False Claims Act case,” I explained for the article.
Depending on the outcome of this case, the legal argument could be used in other states under their False Claims Act laws and jeopardize other gig-based companies utilizing independent contractors.
The full article, “False Claims Open New Gig Worker Classification Fight Frontier,” was published by Bloomberg Law on October 16 and is available online.