Thomas Wassel Quoted in Law360 Discussing Federal Judge’s Rejection of Proposed Uber Settlement

Thomas Wassel, a Partner in the Firm's litigation and labor and employment practice areas, was quoted in Law360 discussing a California federal judge's rejection of the proposed $100 million class action settlement for Uber drivers.  

One problem the judge saw was that the deal gave Uber an almost "blanket release of employment misclassification claims" from drivers in California and Massachusetts that would have ended at least 15 other still-pending lawsuits in California alone.  However, experts say that general claims releases such as the one included in the proposal are common with high-stakes litigation.  Without such a release, there's little incentive to settle.

“I’m not sure that there’s a lot of value to them to say, 'Let’s pay $100 million or increase that, but we can still get sued,'” said Thomas Wassel, a labor and employment partner at Cullen and Dykman. “Why would you pay and leave yourself open to continued suits? You could take the corporate strategic position of 'If we can’t settle everything, then we’re not going to settle anything.'"

The full article can be found at:   http://www.law360.com/articles/830350/uber-primed-for-hard-fight-after-100m-labor-deal-rejected