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The ride-hailing company Uber Technologies in recent months has filed a series of suits under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) against a dozen personal injury lawyers and firms in New York, Florida, California, and Pennsylvania. Uber alleges they schemed with medical providers and others to transform low-value auto accident claims involving Uber drivers into million-dollar-plus lawsuits, to take advantage of the company’s hefty insurance policies.
Defendants in these lawsuits include Wingate, Russotti, Shapiro, Moses & Halperin in Manhattan, recently sued in the Southern District of New York in September, as well as Simon & Simon in Philadelphia.

Uber’s lawsuits all stem from the common circumstance that rideshare companies are required to carry higher insurance limits than ordinary drivers. Uber’s liability coverage is $1 million in California, Florida and Pennsylvania, according to the company. In New York State, it’s $1.25 million. Uber says approximately 45% of the fare of every Uber ride in Los Angeles, for example, goes to mandated insurance costs. Uber says scammers are well aware of this coverage, which allegedly makes the company a target for fake personal injury claims, inflated medical billing and even staged accidents.

In each of the RICO suits, Uber alleges plaintiffs’ lawyers funneled clients to “unscrupulous” medical providers. These doctors, chiropractors and physical therapists, who are also named as defendants in the suits, allegedly provided unnecessary medical procedures to treat negligible or non-existent injuries, creating false evidence of injuries to drive up the cost of settling the cases. In exchange, the medical providers got a steady stream of patients and in some instances, the ability to charge premium rates for their services, Uber alleges, calling the arrangements “a kickback.”

In the suit filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania last month, for example, Uber alleged plaintiffs’ lawyers directed a network of medical providers to perform procedures including spinal injections and radio frequency ablations that “bear no relationship with any underlying injury and are in most instances unnecessary,” according the lawyers from Perkins Coie.

Winning a RICO case can result in treble damages plus attorneys’ fees.

Uber’s lawsuits follow on the heels of a series of similar lawsuits instituted in New York by major insurance providers, those filed by Union Mutual in May this year against firms like Subin Associates, LLP, and others filed by GEICO, Allstate, Progressive, and Roosevelt Road.

Tiger Joyce, president of the pro-business American Tort Reform Association, said he believes the first successful case was in 2013, when CSX Transportation sued two attorneys and a doctor in West Virginia, alleging that they conspired to fabricate asbestos claims. A jury sided with CSX, which netted a $7.3 million payout for damages and legal fees.

Other recent cases have been unsuccessful. For example, a federal judge in Chicago in March dismissed a RICO suit by plastic pipe maker JM Eagle against a plaintiffs’ firm that had filed hundreds of asbestos personal injury cases against it. The judge ruled that JM Eagle failed to show that the injury lawyers, asbestos plaintiffs and other witnesses were functioning as an enterprise — a “continuing unit” and sharing “a common purpose” — though the company has been given leave to amend its complaint.

For corporations, “these are difficult cases to win, because of the complexity and the requirement to prove an enterprise,” Joyce told Reuters. “They are not for the faint of heart.” Civil racketeering claims require detailed evidence of a pattern of unlawful acts committed by members of an “enterprise” working toward a common purpose.

Defendant Downtown LA Law Group stated that Uber’s suit against it “represents a concerning effort to undermine the rights of individuals and the attorneys who advocate for them.”

You can view the complete article published by Reuters, here.