Lyft’s Response to ADA lawsuit: “We’re not a transportation company”

fastcompany.com

17 points·remote_phone··5 comments

Interesting choice. Wonder what happens when advocacy orgs star suing individual drivers.

So fundamentally it sounds like Lyft will need to increase how much they pay drivers with ADA vehicles to incentivize them drive? Lyft would probably take a consistent loss on that, right?

The ADA grants rights to disabled people. If accessibility made pure economic sense, the ADA wouldn't need to exist in the first place. Lyft enjoys a profit by being allowed to operate on public roads, serving hundreds of millions of able-bodied people. The state grants Lyft that privilege under condition that they comply with the law, and ensure ADA accomodations for a small minority of disabled people.

Rights are a question of whether a trade-off is worth it. A small loss center is worth the major improvement in life for disabled people, which is why Congress mandated the law.

Except that ADA has undue hardship clause ( 29 C.F.R. § 1630.2(p) ) that (among other things) requires you to take into account the “net cost of the accommodation”.

Operating at reduced profit is one thing, but operating a loss I think would be interesting to see how the courts decide that — especially since the law appears to have scopes net cost to the accommodation, not overall expenses of the company.

Yeah Lyft is going to have a fun time in Federal Court

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