In Bandele v. Rasier-NY, LLC, 251 A.D.3d 904 (App. Div. 2d Dep't 2026), decided July 22, 2026, New York's Appellate Division, Second Department reversed a lower court order that had dismissed all claims against Uber's affiliated entities on vicarious liability grounds. The plaintiff alleged his vehicle was struck from the rear by Uber driver Wander Zapata at a red traffic signal, and he named Rasier-NY LLC, Uber USA LLC, Uber Technologies Inc., and Rasier-CA LLC as defendants on the theory that Zapata was their employee and they were liable under respondeat superior. Supreme Court agreed with Uber and dismissed. The Second Department reversed, holding that the Uber entities had failed to eliminate all triable issues of fact on the employment versus independent contractor question. The case goes back for trial.
What the Court Found Dispositive
Under New York's respondeat superior doctrine, an employer is liable for the negligent acts of its employee committed within the scope of employment. The critical threshold question in every rideshare crash case is therefore whether the driver is an employee or an independent contractor, because companies generally are not vicariously liable for the acts of independent contractors.
New York courts apply a multifactor control test: the entity that controls the manner and means by which work is performed is the employer, not merely the entity that controls the end result. Uber has argued consistently that its drivers are independent contractors who control their own hours, choose their own vehicles, and operate independently. The Second Department found in Bandele that on the summary judgment record before it, Uber had not established as a matter of law that Zapata was an independent contractor rather than an employee. Questions remained about the degree of operational control Uber exercised through the platform itself, including routing, fare-setting, surge pricing, the rating system that can deactivate drivers, and the real-time supervision of Zapata's trip at the moment of the crash.
The Second Department also reversed the denial of plaintiff's own summary judgment motion, granting plaintiff summary judgment on liability against Zapata and the taxi-owner defendants. That grants plaintiff judgment on the issue of fault for the rear-end crash itself, leaving vicarious liability against the Uber entities as the remaining contested question at trial.
Why the Control Test Looks Different in the Platform Context
The traditional independent contractor analysis was built around relationships where the contractor supplies tools, sets their schedule, and offers services to multiple clients without supervision. Uber drivers do supply their own vehicles and do set their own hours in a nominal sense. But the platform's control mechanisms do not fit neatly into the traditional independent contractor pattern.
The platform sets the fare, retains the right to adjust it, handles all customer-facing communications during the trip, routes the driver through the navigation system, records the route, and maintains the ability to deactivate the driver based on ratings that the driver cannot directly contest in real time. Courts in California, Illinois, and now New York have found that these platform-level controls create triable questions that resist resolution on summary judgment.
The Bandele court did not hold that Zapata was, in fact, Uber's employee. It held only that the question is a fact issue for the jury. That is an important distinction: plaintiff counsel who reads this ruling as establishing vicarious liability for all Uber crashes will over-extend it. What it does establish is that Uber cannot get out of court on a summary judgment motion by relying on the boilerplate independent contractor language in its driver agreement, at least not in the Second Department without more specific evidence about the actual operational relationship in the specific trip at issue.
Building the Vicarious Liability Record
For PI attorneys handling rideshare crash cases in New York after Bandele, the practical lesson is about discovery depth. The summary judgment record that survived dismissal included platform control evidence that the trial court's record had apparently been thin on. Build that record at the outset.
Specifically, serve early discovery demands on the Uber entities targeting: (1) the driver's complete platform records, including trip history, rating history, deactivation warnings, and communications between the driver and Uber; (2) the real-time trip data for the specific trip during which the crash occurred, including route instructions, navigation commands, and any in-app driver communications; (3) Uber's driver agreement, independent contractor agreement, and any driver handbook or policy document that governed Zapata's conduct; and (4) any prior platform communications with Zapata about driving behavior, complaints, or performance.
The goal is to show, at trial, that Uber exercised meaningful day-to-day control over how Zapata performed his work, not just that it had a contractual right to set general terms. Courts distinguish between a franchisor relationship and an employment relationship based on operational specificity. The more granular the evidence of real-time platform control, the harder it is for Uber to maintain the independent contractor characterization as a matter of law.
Broader Implications for the TNC Liability Docket
The Bandele holding joins a growing body of appellate-level decisions that refuse to let TNC defendants dispose of vicarious liability claims on the pleadings or at summary judgment. The Illinois Supreme Court's ruling in the Geller line of cases addressed the arbitration clause issue in a wrongful death context. Courts in California have long held that rideshare vicarious liability is a fact question. Bandele confirms that the Second Department in New York will apply the same lens.
The significance extends beyond crash cases. If a driver is arguably an employee for purposes of respondeat superior in a crash, the same analysis bears on intentional tort claims, including assault cases, where the plaintiff argues the platform is liable for deploying a driver with a history of complaints. The platform control evidence that defeats a summary judgment motion in a rear-end crash becomes even more potent in an assault case where prior complaints about the driver were visible to Uber in its own platform data.
For attorneys tracking how the Bandele holding interacts with earlier Second Department decisions and federal court rulings in the SDNY on TNC liability, the case law and settlements archive has background on the series of cases that built toward this result. For litigation strategy on rideshare crash cases more broadly, including coverage period analysis and direct platform liability theories alongside respondeat superior, see the auto accidents section.