If you were injured in a rideshare accident in California, you already face an uphill battle recovering fair compensation. Insurance coverage gaps, disputed liability between drivers and platforms, and complex claims processes make these cases among the most challenging in personal injury law. California’s rideshare laws have changed more in the last two years than in the decade before. Two major legal battles — one legislative and one that nearly went to the ballot — reshaped the landscape for accident victims in 2026. A new statute promulgated from a landmark legislative settlement affecting plaintiffs’ firms, medical lien providers, transportation network companies, and the broader personal injury ecosystem — the compromise codified in Senate Bill 623 — resulted from negotiations spearheaded by Uber and the Consumer Attorneys of California after both sides qualified competing measures for the November 2026 ballot, and was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom and chaptered by the Secretary of State on June 25, 2026. Understanding what happened — and what it means for your claim — is now essential for every California rideshare accident victim.
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If you were injured in a rideshare accident in California, you already face an uphill battle recovering fair compensation. Insurance coverage gaps, disputed liability between drivers and platforms, and complex claims processes make these cases among the most challenging in personal injury law. California’s rideshare legal landscape has changed more in the last two years than in the prior decade — with two seismic shifts hitting victims in 2026 alone. First, SB 371 slashed the uninsured motorist coverage rideshare companies must carry. Then, Uber backed a sweeping ballot initiative — Initiative 25-0022 attorney fees medical recovery restrictions — that could have devastated accident victims long before they ever saw a settlement check. Both measures were resolved in mid-2026, but their effects are already being felt in every rideshare accident claim filed in California today.
What Were California Initiative 25-0022 and the 2026 Ballot Fight — and Why Should Rideshare Accident Victims Care?
California Initiative 25-0022 was a proposed ballot measure that, as of early June 2026, had successfully qualified for the November 2026 statewide ballot — but was ultimately withdrawn before voters ever had the chance to decide it. Unlike most tort reform efforts that target specific industries or claim types, this initiative was sweeping in scope — it would have applied to all California motor vehicle cases, including every Uber, Lyft, and rideshare accident claim filed in the state. Most rideshare accident victims never heard of it, despite the fact that it represented what legal advocates called an unprecedented threat to plaintiff representation in California motor vehicle litigation.
The drama ended in a legislative compromise. In June 2026, Uber and the Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC) reached a landmark agreement that effectively shelved the ballot measure in exchange for a framework emphasizing transparency, data sharing, and improved claims processes. Both sides withdrew their competing measures. Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 623 — formally titled the Fair Medical Billing & Rideshare Safety Act — on June 25, 2026, averting what had become a prolonged public ballot fight backed by over $150 million in combined campaign spending.
But the damage to California rideshare victims had already begun months earlier. The measure came on the heels of SB 371, which already reduced uninsured and underinsured motorist (UM/UIM) coverage requirements — a devastating blow to accident victims that took effect January 1, 2026. And SB 623, while a compromise, still imposes new limits on how medical expenses are recovered in lien-based rideshare accident cases. To understand the full picture, consider using a car accident settlement calculator to estimate how current settlement structures compare to what victims now face under the changed legal landscape.
The 25% Attorney Fee Cap: How It Would Have Broken the Contingency Fee Model
Current Contingency Fee Structure in California
Under the existing legal framework, California personal injury attorneys — including those who handle rideshare accident cases — typically work on contingency fee agreements ranging from 33% to 40% of the gross recovery. This structure exists for a critical reason: it allows injured people who cannot afford hourly legal fees to access experienced representation. The attorney assumes all financial risk; if the case loses, neither the client nor the attorney recovers anything for the time and costs invested.
This model has been the cornerstone of access to justice in California motor vehicle litigation for decades. It is why a rideshare passenger with $200,000 in medical bills can hire a top personal injury attorney without paying a dollar upfront. The contingency fee aligns the attorney’s financial interest with the client’s: both benefit only when the victim recovers fair compensation.
How Initiative 25-0022 Would Have Disrupted Attorney Compensation
Initiative 25-0022 proposed to amend the California Constitution to limit contingency fees in motor vehicle accident cases to 25% of the total recovery — meaning that car crash victims would be required to retain at least 75% of any settlement or jury award. On its surface, this sounds like more money for victims. The reality was far more damaging.
The critical detail buried in the initiative’s language was that the 25% had to cover everything on the plaintiff’s side — not just attorney fees, but also expert witnesses, court costs, deposition fees, accident reconstruction, medical record retrieval, and every other expense of building the case. In a complex rideshare accident claim involving disputed liability between a driver, a rideshare platform, and a third-party insurer, those costs routinely run into tens of thousands of dollars. Plaintiff attorneys argue that a 25% cap covering both fees and costs makes it economically impossible to litigate serious injury cases, which would leave the most severely injured victims without representation.
Capping contingency fees makes complex cases financially unviable, and personal injury attorneys may be unable to afford to take them on. Fewer plaintiff attorneys would have put injured victims in a vulnerable position, as they would have had to deal with Uber’s well-funded insurance companies and corporate defense teams on their own. The initiative also critically left defendants’ attorneys entirely unrestricted — a structural asymmetry that would have pitted under-resourced victims against insurers with unlimited legal budgets.
The Medical Cost Reimbursement Trap Hidden in the Initiative’s Language
What the Initiative Said About Medical Expenses
The fee cap got the headlines. But Section 2 of Initiative 25-0022 was where the math quietly gutted victim recoveries. The initiative would have established standards for the recovery of medical expenses based on Medicare, Medi-Cal, and the national health insurance database — rather than the actual cost of treatment paid or owed. Specifically, it would have capped what victims could recover for unpaid medical expenses at 125% of Medicare reimbursement rates. If no applicable Medicare rate existed, the fallback was 170% of Medi-Cal rates.
The gap between those government benchmarks and what medical care actually costs in California is enormous. According to Milliman’s 2025 commercial reimbursement benchmarking data, commercial insurers in California pay between 166% and 277% of Medicare rates, depending on the region and type of service — with a national average of 196%. The American Hospital Association has reported that Medicare reimburses hospitals at roughly 87% of their actual costs. Capping victims at 125% of Medicare while hospitals charge well above those levels means victims would routinely be unable to recover their actual out-of-pocket medical costs.
The “Not Deductible Disbursements” Problem
Under the initiative’s framework, the 25% cap on the plaintiff’s side would have included attorney fees, case costs and medical liens — all within the same 25% ceiling. For rideshare accident victims who receive treatment on a lien basis — meaning doctors treat them now and wait to be paid from the eventual settlement — this created a structural impossibility. Treating providers who accept patients on a lien basis generally do so because the lien amount reflects the actual cost of care. Tying recovery to Medicare and Medi-Cal benchmarks, which are below market rates, would have made it economically unworkable for providers to treat lien patients at all.
The result: injured people would have struggled to find both an attorney willing to take their case and a doctor willing to treat them on the terms the case required. The California Medical Association and physician groups opposed the measure specifically because tying medical reimbursement to Medicare and Medi-Cal rates — a fraction of actual costs — would have caused providers to stop treating crash victims on medical liens, cutting off access to care for uninsured and underinsured patients.
Comparing Current Settlement Structures to What Initiative 25-0022 Would Have Created
A Data-Driven Look at the Impact
Consider a representative rideshare accident case in California in 2026. A passenger suffers a herniated disc and traumatic brain injury in a crash caused by an uninsured driver. Total medical bills come to $350,000. Under the current framework — with Uber’s $1 million liability policy intact for at-fault crashes — the victim’s attorney negotiates a $600,000 settlement. The attorney’s contingency fee of 33% ($198,000) covers legal fees plus case costs of approximately $45,000, leaving the net attorney fee at around $153,000. The victim nets approximately $402,000 after attorney fees, costs, and medical bill resolution.
Under Initiative 25-0022’s 25% cap covering everything on the plaintiff’s side, the same $600,000 settlement would leave only $150,000 total for attorney fees, all case costs, and medical lien resolution. With $45,000 in litigation costs alone, the attorney would net $105,000 — a 31% reduction in compensation for handling a case that carries the same complexity, risk, and work. For smaller settlements in the $75,000 to $150,000 range — which represent the majority of rideshare claims — the math becomes even more stark. Those cases would have become economically unviable to litigate, leaving victims with only what the insurer offered in its initial low-ball proposal.
The numbers confirm the scale of the threat. As of 2026, California Uber accident settlements range from $15,000 to over $1,000,000, with the severity of injuries, the insurance period active at the time of the crash, and the quality of legal representation being the dominant variables. Total rideshare accident costs top $12 billion annually in the US. Capping the legal infrastructure that drives those recoveries would have transferred a substantial portion of that value from victims to insurance companies.
The Broader Threat: State Fiscal Impact and the Uber Connection
California’s Own Budget Would Have Suffered
The Legislative Analyst’s Office and the Director of Finance issued an official fiscal impact estimate for Initiative 25-0022 that projected likely net savings to the state trial courts ranging from the millions to the tens of millions of dollars annually — but those savings came with a serious hidden cost. The same analysis found that the measure could result in increased costs to the state related to Medi-Cal. This is because when fewer motor vehicle accident cases are filed — and victims recover less — more injured Californians fall back on publicly funded healthcare to cover their treatment. The state would effectively be absorbing costs that corporations and their insurers would otherwise have paid through tort liability.
This dynamic matters in 2026 because California’s Medi-Cal budget is already under severe strain, with estimated Medi-Cal spending reaching an all-time high of $49 billion General Fund in 2026-27. Any policy that drives more injured Californians onto Medi-Cal adds pressure to an already strained system. The legislative analyst estimated that if the measure had passed, fewer lawsuits would have been filed — saving trial courts tens of millions annually while increasing Medi-Cal costs by a comparable amount.
Uber’s Role and the Racketeering Lawsuits
Initiative 25-0022 was funded primarily by Uber Technologies, Inc., which put approximately $32.5 million into the initiative as of early 2026 through a committee called “A More Affordable California.” Plaintiff attorneys, doctors, and consumer groups committed roughly $55 million in opposition and competing measures. The ballot initiative was just one front in Uber’s broader legal offensive against the personal injury plaintiffs’ bar.
In 2025, Uber filed three federal civil racketeering lawsuits under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) — in New York, Florida, and California — against various law firms and medical practices that it accused of engaging in schemes to fraudulently increase the costs of rideshare personal injury claims. The California suit, filed in July 2025, alleged that several defendants operated a scheme in which personal injury attorneys directed clients to pre-selected medical providers who performed unnecessary treatments and then submitted artificially inflated bills. In May 2026, a federal judge in Pennsylvania gave the green light to a similar racketeering lawsuit by Uber and FedEx against a Philadelphia law firm and a group of medical providers, finding the companies had provided ample facts to allow the court to infer a plausible basis for their racketeering claims.
Uber’s parallel strategy — RICO lawsuits plus a constitutional ballot initiative — represented a comprehensive attempt to reshape the economics of rideshare personal injury litigation. According to a Consumer Watchdog report, limiting liability is a key goal as the company looks toward a future that includes costly autonomous vehicle rollouts. By challenging the economics of personal injury law now, Uber is attempting to control one of its biggest operational risks going forward: the cost of accidents. The Nevada Supreme Court had unanimously struck down a similar Uber-backed ballot initiative in January 2025, ruling the measure “misleading and confusing.” California was the second attempt, with significantly more funding behind it.
What This Means for Rideshare Accident Victims in 2026
The Access to Justice Crisis That Nearly Followed
Initiative 25-0022 qualified for the November 2026 ballot, but Uber and the Consumer Attorneys of California reached a last-minute deal to remove the measures from the upcoming election altogether. The compromise, Senate Bill 623 — formally the Fair Medical Billing & Rideshare Safety Act — was signed by Governor Newsom on June 25, 2026, and both sides withdrew their competing measures. SB 623 does not cap attorney fees. However, it does impose new limits on medical lien recoveries in rideshare cases, requiring that recovery for services provided on a medical lien cannot exceed the 70th percentile of billed charges recorded by FAIR Health, or a comparable commercial database, for the same or similar service in the geographic area where the treatment occurred.
This means that while the worst-case scenario — a constitutional amendment gutting contingency fees — was averted, rideshare accident victims still face a changed landscape. The structural threat is real: on one side, fewer attorneys willing to take low-value lien cases under the new medical expense rules; on the other side, doctors being told they may get paid less than what care actually costs on a delayed or lien basis. SB 623’s medical expense provisions apply to accidents occurring on or after January 1, 2027, giving 2026 victims a window to pursue claims under existing rules.
What Victims and Their Families Should Do Now
If you were injured in a California rideshare accident, the layered changes to the law in 2026 make experienced legal representation more important, not less. SB 371, effective January 1, 2026, reduced UM/UIM coverage from $1 million per person to just $60,000 per person and $300,000 per incident — a roughly 94% reduction in the coverage that protects passengers when the at-fault driver is uninsured. For serious injuries such as spinal injuries, brain injuries, and multiple fractures, the $60,000 per-person limit will be quickly exhausted. Proposition 22, upheld unanimously by the California Supreme Court in July 2024, continues to classify rideshare drivers as independent contractors, which limits certain vicarious liability theories against the platforms directly — though Uber still maintains a $1 million per-incident commercial liability policy when a driver is actively transporting a passenger.
The combination of reduced UM/UIM coverage under SB 371, new medical lien limits under SB 623 effective in 2027, and the ongoing independent contractor classification under Proposition 22 means that rideshare accident victims in 2026 must act quickly, document everything, and consult an attorney immediately. Initial settlement offers from rideshare insurers remain far below the true value of serious claims. With each passing week, evidence degrades and legal options narrow. The most important thing a victim can do is contact an experienced California rideshare accident attorney before speaking to any insurer.
Frequently Asked Questions About Initiative 25-0022, SB 623, and Rideshare Accident Claims
What exactly would Initiative 25-0022 have done to attorney fees in my rideshare accident case?
Initiative 25-0022 would have amended the California Constitution to cap contingency fees in all motor vehicle accident cases — including rideshare crashes — at 25% of the total recovery. Crash victims would have been required to retain at least 75% of their recovery, with attorneys facing misdemeanor liability and State Bar discipline for charging more. The critical problem: that 25% had to cover attorney fees, expert witnesses, court costs, deposition fees, accident reconstruction, and every other expense of building the case. For complex rideshare injury claims, those disbursements alone can exceed $50,000, leaving no realistic compensation for the attorney’s time and risk. The practical result would have been that many serious injury cases became economically impossible for attorneys to take, leaving injured Californians without legal representation against well-funded insurance companies and corporate defendants.
How does SB 623 affect my medical bill recovery?
SB 623 — the compromise law signed on June 25, 2026 — does not cap attorney fees and does not impose the sweeping Medicare-rate limits that Initiative 25-0022 would have. However, it does limit recoverable past medical expenses in certain rideshare accident cases involving lien-based medical providers. Under the new law, recovery for services provided on a medical lien generally cannot exceed the 70th percentile of billed charges recorded by FAIR Health, or a comparable commercial database, for the same or similar service in the geographic area where treatment occurred. Any portion of the provider’s charge above that limit is void and cannot be collected from the patient, defendant, insurer, or settlement proceeds. These provisions apply to accidents occurring on or after January 1, 2027. If your accident occurred before that date, existing rules still apply — another reason to consult an attorney immediately.
Why was Uber involved in backing this initiative?
Uber invested approximately $32.5 million in Initiative 25-0022 through its “A More Affordable California” committee. The company presents the initiative as a path to reducing insurance and legal costs, curbing what it calls “legal abuse,” and making rideshare trips more affordable. But as Consumer Watchdog has reported, limiting liability is a key goal as the company looks toward a future that includes costly autonomous vehicle rollouts. By challenging the economics of personal injury law, Uber was attempting to control one of its biggest operational risks: the cost of accidents. The ballot initiative was part of a broader strategy that also included multiple federal RICO lawsuits against personal injury law firms and medical providers in California, New York, and Florida — all filed in 2025 — alleging schemes to fraudulently inflate accident claims. The Nevada Supreme Court rejected a similar Uber-backed fee cap initiative in January 2025, ruling it “misleading and confusing.” California was the second attempt — with far more money behind it.
Will SB 623 affect cases that are already filed or settled?
SB 623’s medical expense provisions apply to covered automobile accidents occurring on or after January 1, 2027. Cases arising from accidents that occurred before that date are governed by existing law. SB 371’s UM/UIM coverage reductions, however, took effect January 1, 2026, and apply to accidents occurring after that date. If your rideshare accident occurred in 2025 or earlier, you may still have access to the prior $1 million UM/UIM coverage — another critical reason to have your case evaluated by an attorney without delay, since the applicable insurance period and accident date determine which legal framework governs your claim.
What should California rideshare accident victims do after the November 2026 ballot fight ended?
The withdrawal of Initiative 25-0022 from the November 2026 ballot is a significant — but partial — victory for rideshare accident victims. Attorney fees remain uncapped, which preserves the contingency fee model and your ability to hire experienced counsel without upfront costs. But SB 371’s UM/UIM cuts are law, SB 623’s medical lien limits are coming in 2027, and Uber continues to pursue racketeering litigation against personal injury firms and medical providers, which has a chilling effect on the medical and legal ecosystems that serve accident victims. If you or a family member was injured in a rideshare accident in California, consult an experienced personal injury attorney immediately — before speaking to any insurer, before accepting any settlement offer, and before the evolving legal landscape further narrows your options. The most important decision you will make after a rideshare crash is who represents you.
Jennifer Torres is a Rideshare Accident Claims Researcher with extensive knowledge of personal injury law and settlement values across the United States. With years of experience analyzing rideshare accident claims only (high value) cases, Jennifer helps injury victims understand their legal rights and the potential value of their claims. Jennifer is not an attorney and the information provided is for educational purposes only.