Uber's RICO Case Against Injury Lawyers Dismissed in New York, But Fight Continues

Uber’s Case Against Injury Lawyers Just Hit a Wall in New York. The Fight Isn’t Over.

September 9
Written By HH Law Team

Get hurt in an Uber, hire a lawyer, and file a claim. Normally, that story ends with a settlement or a trial. Uber has spent the past year trying to write a very different ending, one where the injury lawyers and doctors who represent accident victims are the ones facing federal racketeering charges.

A federal court in New York just delivered the first major test of that strategy. Uber lost.

Uber’s RICO strategy has drawn national legal press coverage over the past year. HH Law Firm founder Hani A. Habbas had already been closely watching the case well before this ruling. In April 2025, Hani published his own legal analysis of Uber’s complaint in Orange County Lawyer Magazine, warning that the lawsuit could reshape how personal injury claims against rideshare companies are litigated nationwide. That prediction is now playing out in real time.

What Uber’s RICO Lawsuits Allege

Starting in 2025, Uber filed a wave of federal lawsuits against personal injury law firms, doctors, and medical clinics in New York, California, Florida, and Pennsylvania. The company accused these firms and providers of running coordinated schemes involving staged accidents, unnecessary surgeries, inflated medical bills, and secret side deals between attorneys and providers, all designed to pump up settlement demands against Uber and its insurers.

Uber didn’t just sue under state fraud law. It reached for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO, the same statute historically used to dismantle organized crime rings.

IN PLAIN TERMS:

RICO lets a plaintiff who proves an organized pattern of fraud recover three times its actual damages. It’s a serious escalation, and it comes with a much higher bar to clear than an ordinary fraud claim.

Why the New York Court Rejected Uber’s Claims

In mid-August, U.S. District Judge Orelia E. Merchant of the Eastern District of New York dismissed Uber’s RICO claims in Uber Technologies, Inc. v. Wingate, Russotti, Shapiro, Moses & Halperin, LLP, No. 1:25-cv-00522 against three New York personal injury firms and a group of doctors and pain clinics. Her reasoning, detailed in the ABA Journal’s coverage of the ruling, came down to two problems with Uber’s case.

First, Uber couldn’t show the doctors and lawyers were actually working together toward a shared criminal purpose, which RICO requires. The court found that each doctor appeared to be pursuing referrals for their own business reasons, not conspiring with the others as part of one enterprise. Uber’s strongest example of overbilling, a spinal procedure billed at roughly double the median rate, wasn’t enough on its own to establish a coordinated scheme.

Second, and just as important, Uber ran into a standing problem. Of the underlying personal injury lawsuits Uber pointed to as proof of harm, several are still pending. Until those cases resolve, Uber can’t yet prove how much it was actually damaged, which means it doesn’t yet have the concrete injury RICO requires, as Insurance Journal’s reporting on the order explains.

IN PLAIN TERMS:

The court didn’t rule that the underlying accident claims were fraudulent or legitimate. It ruled that Uber’s own lawsuit was filed before it could prove its case, and that its allegations didn’t add up to the kind of organized criminal enterprise RICO was built to police. The judge also declined to rule on Uber’s separate state law claims, which remain unresolved.

This Isn’t the End of the Story

Uber has filed nearly identical RICO lawsuits against personal injury firms and medical providers in Los Angeles, Miami, and Philadelphia. Those cases are still pending, and they aren’t starting from the same place as New York.

In California and Pennsylvania, judges have already denied the defendants’ motions to dismiss, allowing those cases to move forward. That’s the opposite outcome from what just happened in Brooklyn. A federal judge in the Central District of California let most of Uber’s claims against the Downtown LA Law Group and the Law Offices of Jacob Emrani proceed, while a federal judge in Philadelphia similarly refused to toss Uber’s case against Simon & Simon, P.C. Uber has pointed to those rulings as validation of its broader strategy, even as the New York dismissal shows how differently these cases can play out depending on the specific facts a judge is looking at.

Uber has been explicit about why it’s pursuing this approach nationwide: the company argues that fraud and legal system abuse drive up insurance costs for drivers and riders alike, and it has backed legislative reform efforts in states like New York alongside its litigation.

What This Means for California and D.C. Injury Victims and Attorneys

The Los Angeles RICO case, filed in the Central District of California in July 2025, has already survived a motion to dismiss and is moving into the next phase of litigation. That matters directly for California vehicular injury victims and the attorneys who represent them. This is not a distant East Coast story. It’s playing out in the same courts where many rideshare accident claims get filed. For more on how these cases fit into the wider shift in rideshare litigation, see our earlier coverage of Uber’s Los Angeles RICO filing and how California’s new rideshare insurance rules affect injured riders.

Even for firms outside the pending cases, the broader trend is worth watching. Corporate defendants are increasingly willing to turn the tables on the plaintiffs’ bar, using aggressive federal statutes to challenge how injury claims get built and who gets referred to which providers.

At HH Law Firm, we build every case on documented injuries, transparent medical relationships, and evidence that holds up under scrutiny, not just from a jury, but from anyone looking for a reason to discredit it. That’s always been the standard. It matters more now than ever.

We’re Watching Every Twist

Have you or someone you love been hurt in a rideshare accident and wondered how a case like this could affect your claim? This story is far from finished, and we’ll keep tracking it as the California, Florida, and Pennsylvania cases develop. Drop your questions or request a free consultation, or give our office a call. We’d rather explain it now than have you find out the hard way later.