The Truth Behind Uber’s Anti-Consumer Ballot Initiative
In the coming months, when you are outside a grocery store, post office, or DMV, you will see signature gatherers with friendly clipboards asking you to “help car accident victims keep more of their settlement” or “rein in greedy lawyers.”
What they’re probably talking about is a new, Uber-backed California ballot initiative officially titled the “Protecting Automobile Accident Victims from Attorney Self-Dealing Act” (Initiative #25-0022). It’s being pushed for the November 2026 ballot.
The sales pitch sounds consumer-friendly. The fine print is not.
This measure would severely limit what injured people can recover for their medical care and make it much harder for regular Californians to hire a lawyer after a crash. Here’s what it really does, why it’s dangerous, and what you should do if someone asks you to sign.
What the Uber Ballot Initiative Actually Does
According to public summaries and the initiative text, this measure would:
- Require car accident victims to “receive at least 75%” of the total damages recovered.
- That sounds good until you realize it effectively caps attorney fees and case costs at 25% of the recovery—no matter how complex or expensive the case is to prosecute.
- Limit what can be recovered for medical bills.
- The initiative ties “recoverable” medical expenses to Medicare/Medi-Cal rates and a national health-care pricing database, often far below what providers actually charge or agree to on a lien basis for injured patients.
- Restrict relationships between injury lawyers and medical providers.
- It broadly bans many referral arrangements between personal injury law firms and medical providers, which sounds like an anti-kickback rule, but in practice targets the lien-based medical treatment system that currently allows uninsured and underinsured crash victims to get care now and pay later out of any settlement.
- Leave insurance companies and Uber untouched.
- While the initiative limits what you and your lawyer can do, it does not cap what Uber or any insurance company can spend on their own defense lawyers or experts, nor does it limit their power to delay, deny, or underpay claims.
In other words: it tells injured people and their lawyers to fight with one hand tied behind their backs, while billion-dollar corporations keep both fists free.
How the Fee Cap Hurts Injured People (Not Just Lawyers)
Most people injured in a crash cannot afford to pay a lawyer by the hour. Contingency fees exist so that ordinary people can hire experienced trial lawyers with no money upfront—the lawyer only gets paid if they win, and out of the result.
Uber’s initiative takes that model and quietly rewrites it in ways that are devastating for consumers:
1. Complex cases become economically impossible
Serious injury cases are expensive to litigate. Lawyers often have to front:
- Medical expert fees
- Accident reconstruction experts
- Depositions and court reporters
- Investigators and trial exhibits
Those costs can easily run into the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Under Uber’s proposal, attorney fees plus all those costs must fit inside 25% of the total recovery.
That means in a serious case, a competent lawyer could literally lose money by taking it—so many of them simply won’t. The result isn’t “less money to lawyers;” it’s no lawyer at all for many injured people.
Stanford legal scholars have already described Uber’s fee-cap efforts as a way to “lock poor plaintiffs out of the courthouse.”
2. Smaller cases will be turned away
Even today, many firms can only take cases above a certain value, because the economics have to work. If fees are capped at 25% including costs, it will be even harder for people with modest but real injuries—like whiplash, broken bones, or months of physical therapy—to find representation.
Who benefits when injured people have to handle claims alone? Not the victim. Insurance companies do.
3. The playing field tilts sharply toward insurance companies
While your lawyer is capped and squeezed, the initiative does not cap what insurers can pay their defense firms. They can still hire big defense firms, pay them hourly, and drag cases out as long as they like.
Uber already tried a similar fee-cap ballot initiative in Nevada, seeking a 20% cap on contingency fees in all civil cases. The Nevada Supreme Court unanimously blocked it, calling the language “misleading and confusing,” especially about whether “recovery” included medical costs.
California is now the next battleground.
How the Initiative Threatens Access to Medical Care
Hidden behind the “75% rule” is something even more dangerous: a direct attack on crash victims’ ability to get medical treatment.
Here’s how:
- Tying medical damages to Medicare/Medi-Cal rates
- The initiative would peg recoverable medical expenses to government or database rates that are often far below what doctors charge, especially for specialized trauma care, surgery, or long-term rehabilitation.
- Killing lien-based treatment
- Right now, many injured Californians—especially those without good health insurance—get treatment through medical liens, where doctors agree to treat them and get paid later from any settlement.
- If recoverable medical bills are slashed to low government rates and there’s only 25% left for both lawyers and medical costs, doctors simply won’t be able to afford to treat patients on liens.
- Practical result: delay or denial of care
- Crash victims may face a cruel choice:
- Skip care or stop treatment early, because nobody will treat them on a lien; or
- Use overburdened public systems and accept minimal, delayed care.
- Future medical needs become even harder to prove and recover
- When patients can’t get full, appropriate treatment up front, their long-term needs are under-documented, making it easier for insurance companies to argue that ongoing pain, limitations, or future surgeries “aren’t justified.”
So while the ballot measure is marketed as “protecting accident victims from lawyers,” its real effect is to protect corporate bottom lines by shrinking both legal representation and medical care.
The Marketing vs. the Reality
Proponents say the initiative will:
- “Crack down on predatory legal strategies”
- “Stop phantom medical billing”
- “Make sure victims keep at least 75% of their settlement”
But they leave out key facts:
- That 75% “kept” by the victim is figured only after squashing attorney fees and medical costs into the tiny 25% that’s left.
- That the initiative reduces what can be claimed for legitimate medical treatment, not just “inflated” bills.
- That nothing in the law stops Uber or insurers from continuing to pay their defense firms whatever they want.
In short, this is not a grassroots consumer protection effort. It’s a well-funded corporate campaign to make it harder and cheaper to resolve claims against them.
What Californians Should Do When Asked to Sign
You have the absolute right not to sign any petition, and you also have the right to ask questions before you sign anything.
If someone approaches you with this initiative:
- Slow down. Don’t sign on the spot.
- Signature gatherers are often paid per signature. They may give you only the rosy talking points, not the full picture. You can simply say, “I don’t sign things I haven’t researched.”
- Ask who is really behind it.
- Ask: “Is this the Uber initiative about capping attorney fees in car accident cases?”
- Ask: “Who’s funding this campaign?” (The answer, directly or indirectly, is major corporate/insurance interests, not consumer groups.)
- Look up neutral and consumer-focused information before deciding.
- Check Ballotpedia’s page for the California Establish Personal Injury Lawyer Regulations Initiative (2026) for a neutral summary and links to the full text.
- Review statements from consumer and victim-rights organizations, such as Consumer Attorneys of California and Consumer Watchdog, to see why they oppose the measure.
- If you believe it harms victims, politely decline to sign.
- You can say something simple, like:“I’ve read about this Uber initiative. I’m concerned it will hurt crash victims’ access to lawyers and medical care, so I’m not signing.”
- Share what you’ve learned.
- Talk to friends, family, and coworkers. Many people sign petitions based only on a catchy title. A five-minute conversation may be the difference between informed and misinformed support.
The Bottom Line
This Uber-backed ballot initiative is not about protecting accident victims from “greedy lawyers.” It is about:
- Capping and squeezing the very fee structure that allows regular people to hire a lawyer at all
- Slashing what injured people can recover for necessary medical care
- Tilting the playing field even further toward Uber and the insurance industry
Californians should be extremely cautious about signing any petition connected to this measure until they understand the real consequences.
If you’re ever injured in a crash, you’ll want:
- A lawyer who can afford to take your case
- Doctors who are willing to treat you, even if you can’t pay upfront
- A legal system that doesn’t secretly favor billion-dollar corporations
This initiative pushes California in the opposite direction.
