Couple Blocked from Suing Uber After Daughter’s Uber Eats Order

By David B. Pittman, Esq. — Founder, Pittman Law Firm, P.L. | Last updated May 14, 2026

John and Georgia McGinty were seriously injured in an Uber crash. Then they learned they could not take Uber to court — because their twelve-year-old daughter had once clicked through a block of Uber Eats terms on her mother’s phone to order a pizza. A New Jersey appeals court said that single clickthrough was enough to send her parents’ personal injury case into private arbitration instead of a jury trial.

People hear that and reasonably ask whether the same thing can happen to them in Florida. The McGinty decision is not binding here, but Florida courts have enforced clickwrap arbitration clauses for years, and the same fact pattern can land the same way on this side of the state line. This article is the explanation I usually give in person, written down: what Florida law actually says about rideshare passenger claims, how arbitration clauses work in practice, the patterns we see in our office, and what to do if you have been hurt as an Uber or Lyft passenger in Lee or Collier County.

What Florida Law Actually Says About Rideshare Passenger Claims

Florida wrote a separate statute for rideshare in 2017 — §627.748, Florida Statutes, the Transportation Network Company Act. The key part for passengers is the coverage trigger. Once a rideshare driver accepts a ride and a passenger is in the vehicle, the company is required to keep a $1 million liability policy in force. That policy covers bodily injury to passengers and to anyone the driver hits. Plain English version: if you are sitting in the back seat of an Uber or a Lyft when the crash happens, there is a million-dollar policy reaching for your injury claim before anyone even gets to the driver’s personal coverage.

The coverage shrinks when the driver is logged into the app but has not yet picked up a passenger. In that “Period 1” window, the statute requires only $50,000 per person and $100,000 per crash in liability, plus $25,000 in property damage. When the app is off entirely, the rideshare policy does not apply at all and you are dealing with the driver’s personal auto policy, which in Florida is often the state minimum.

The second statute that matters is §627.736, Florida’s PIP statute. A lot of clients are surprised to learn that their own household auto policy pays the first $10,000 of medical bills even when they were riding as a passenger in someone else’s car. PIP follows the person, not the car. So if you have a Florida auto policy and you get hurt in an Uber on Pine Ridge Road, your PIP carrier is on the hook for the front-end medical bills, then the rideshare policy takes over for the rest.

The third statute is the one most clients have never heard of and it ends up being the one that saves a lot of cases. §627.727 governs uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. If the at-fault driver is someone other than the Uber driver — say another car ran a light and hit the Uber — and that at-fault driver carries low limits, your own UM coverage can stack on top of whatever the rideshare policy pays. UM does not have to come from the rideshare carrier; it can come from the policy you sign in your kitchen on a vehicle you may not have been driving that night.

Five Rideshare Scenarios We Handle in Lee and Collier Counties

The rideshare files in our office tend to fall into one of five buckets:

1. Passenger in the rideshare, another driver at fault. Most common. Your case sits primarily against the third-party driver. The rideshare’s $1 million policy is in play as UM if that third-party driver carries low or no coverage.
2. Passenger in the rideshare, the rideshare driver at fault. This is the McGinty pattern. The $1 million policy is on first-dollar coverage. The fight is almost always about damages, sometimes about arbitration.
3. Pedestrian or cyclist hit by a rideshare driver. Coverage depends on whether the driver was on a trip, between trips with the app on, or off-duty. We pull the trip log first thing.
4. Driver of another vehicle hit by a rideshare driver. Same coverage analysis. The rideshare’s policy reaches your claim if the driver was on a trip or had the app on.
5. Rideshare driver hurt while working. Their own injury claim. Workers’ compensation does not apply to rideshare drivers in Florida by statute, so they rely on their personal auto policy plus whatever rideshare-side occupational accident coverage may exist.

Each of these reads on the same statute, but the order of operations is different. That is why the first question we ask a new rideshare client is not “where were you going” but “where in the trip cycle were you when it happened.”

Why Rideshare Cases Are More Complicated Than They Look

On paper a rideshare case looks simple. A million-dollar policy, a clear at-fault driver, an injured passenger who did absolutely nothing wrong. In practice they are some of the messier cases that come through our door. A few reasons.

Trip logs and app data live with the company, not with you. The driver’s app status at the moment of impact decides which policy applies. That status sits on Uber’s or Lyft’s server. We have to write to the company early and preserve it; if too much time passes, drivers can be deactivated and data gets archived in ways that take months to retrieve.

The rideshare carrier is not the driver’s carrier. Uber uses one set of underwriters, Lyft uses another, and neither is the personal carrier that insured the driver’s car for daily use. They sometimes argue with each other about which policy is primary. That argument should not delay your treatment, but it can complicate a settlement timeline.

Arbitration clauses. This is the McGinty issue. Both Uber and Lyft have, for years, included broad arbitration clauses in their terms of service, and they argue those clauses cover not just disputes about a missing burrito but disputes about a multi-vehicle wreck. Florida courts apply the Federal Arbitration Act and will enforce a clickwrap arbitration clause when the user got reasonable notice and clearly assented. The defense usually moves to compel arbitration within the first sixty days of suit.

Out-of-state defendants. Uber Technologies, Inc. is a Delaware corporation headquartered in California. Lyft is the same story. They appear in Florida courts through registered agents, and they are well-represented. They do not settle early just because the case looks bad.

Pre-existing conditions. Whiplash, disc injuries, and concussions are the most common injuries in rideshare wrecks, and they are also the injuries that defense lawyers most often try to attribute to age, prior accidents, or degenerative changes. The medical workup matters as much as the legal workup.

A case from Vanderbilt Beach Road in Naples

A few years ago we represented a passenger who was riding in an Uber heading west on Vanderbilt Beach Road in Naples. Traffic was heavy in the late afternoon. The Uber driver tried to make a U-turn where U-turns were not allowed, and a car traveling the other direction T-boned the rideshare on the passenger side. Our client took the brunt of the impact through her neck and upper back.

She was diagnosed initially with whiplash-associated disorder and chronic neck pain. The pain did not go away after the standard six-week course of treatment, so her doctor ordered an MRI. The imaging showed a C5-C6 disc protrusion pressing on the spinal cord. That changed the case. She moved from a soft-tissue claim to a real cervical-disc claim, and the treatment plan expanded to include chiropractic care plus a series of medial branch blocks at the pain clinic to confirm the source of her pain.

On the coverage side, the Uber driver was clearly on a trip with a paying passenger when the crash happened, which put the rideshare carrier’s $1 million liability policy on first-dollar exposure. We presented the imaging, the diagnostic injection results, the wage-loss documentation, and a forward-looking cost projection for likely future injections.

The case resolved for the full $1 million policy limit before suit. The reason it resolved was not because the law was on our side — the law is usually on a rear-seat passenger’s side. It resolved because the medical documentation tied the disc protrusion to the impact and the carrier did not want to take a clearly-injured passenger case to a Collier County jury.

What to Do if You Were Hurt in an Uber or Lyft in Florida

The advice below is what I tell clients in the first phone call, in the order I tell it:

1. Screenshot the trip in the app before you do anything else. Open the rideshare app and screenshot the trip receipt — driver name, vehicle, route map, timestamp, fare. That information sometimes disappears from the user-facing app within weeks. Email the screenshots to yourself so they sit on a server, not just on the phone.
2. Get checked out the same day, even if you feel okay. I have noticed over the years that passengers in rear-seat impacts often feel fine for a day or two and then wake up on day three with neck pain that turns out to be a disc injury. A same-day emergency room or urgent-care visit creates the documentation trail that matters six months later.
3. Call your own auto insurer. Your own PIP is the first $10,000 of medical coverage even though you were a passenger. Open the claim within fourteen days of the crash. Florida law cuts off PIP benefits if you wait longer than fourteen days for initial treatment.
4. Do not give a recorded statement to the rideshare carrier without a lawyer. They will call quickly. They are pleasant. The questions are designed to lock you into a description of your injuries before you actually know what is wrong with you.
5. Do not click “accept” on any settlement portal in the rideshare app. Some carriers route low-end settlement offers through the app itself. Accepting one is usually treated as a full release.
6. Pull the police report and the body-cam footage if available. Lee County, Collier County, and Naples city police all use body-cams now. Footage gets overwritten on routine retention schedules. A preservation letter early in the case keeps it.
7. Bring the device to the first meeting with a lawyer. If there is any question about who clicked through what terms of service, the lawyer needs to see the actual account, the order history, and the device. Particularly if anyone other than the account holder ever used the phone.

Key Takeaways

• Florida’s TNC statute, §627.748, requires a $1 million liability policy when the rideshare driver is on a trip with a passenger. That policy reaches you whether the rideshare driver caused the crash or another driver did.
• Your own household auto PIP pays the first $10,000 of medical bills even when you are riding as a passenger in someone else’s car. Open the claim within fourteen days.
• The New Jersey McGinty arbitration ruling is not binding in Florida, but Florida courts do enforce clickwrap arbitration clauses when the user had clear notice. Plan for an arbitration motion in any rideshare case.
• The rideshare driver’s app status at the moment of impact decides which policy applies. The trip log lives on the company’s server and must be preserved early.
• Florida’s statute of limitations on most negligence claims is now two years from the date of injury under the 2023 amendments. Do not wait.

Frequently Asked Questions

If I was hurt as an Uber or Lyft passenger in Florida, whose insurance pays?

When a rideshare driver is on a trip with a passenger, Florida law requires the company to carry a $1 million liability policy under §627.748. Your own household auto PIP also pays the first $10,000 of medical bills under §627.736, even though you were not driving your own car. If the other driver caused the wreck and carries low limits, your own UM coverage under §627.727 can stack on top.

Did the New Jersey arbitration ruling against the McGintys actually change Florida law?

No. It is a New Jersey appellate decision, not binding on Florida courts. But Florida courts routinely enforce clickwrap arbitration clauses when the user clearly assented, so the same outcome can happen here. The fight in Florida is usually over notice — whether the terms were presented clearly, whether the user had to scroll, whether the assent button was unambiguous — not whether arbitration agreements are valid in general.

Can a child’s clickthrough on a parent’s phone bind the parent to arbitration?

It depends on whose account it was and who actually saw the terms. Courts have split on this. If the account belongs to the parent and the parent’s phone was used, some courts will hold the parent to the clickthrough on apparent-authority grounds. Other courts have refused to enforce arbitration where a minor clicked. Bring the device, the account records, and the order history to the first meeting so the lawyer can size up that argument early.

What if my Uber driver was off-duty or the app was off when the crash happened?

Then the rideshare company’s $1 million policy is not in play. Coverage falls back to the driver’s personal auto policy, which is often minimum-limits in Florida. Your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage under §627.727 becomes the most important policy in the file. We have closed cases on UM stacks where the rideshare policy never paid a dollar.

How long do I have to file a Florida rideshare injury claim?

Under the 2023 amendment to §95.11, most negligence claims in Florida carry a two-year statute of limitations from the date of the crash. Wrongful death claims also run two years. Do not assume you have four years anymore. Talk to a lawyer well before the two-year mark, because evidence on a rideshare claim — trip logs, app data, body-cam footage, witness contact information — disappears fast.

If You Were Hurt as a Rideshare Passenger in Southwest Florida

Our office handles rideshare-passenger and commercial-policy injury cases across Lee and Collier Counties, including Bonita Springs, Fort Myers, Naples, Estero, Cape Coral, and Lehigh Acres. If you were hurt in an Uber or a Lyft anywhere in Southwest Florida — or your family member was — call us at 239-992-8259 for a free consultation. There is no fee unless we recover for you.

About the Author

David B. Pittman, Esq. is the founding attorney of Pittman Law Firm, P.L., handling personal injury cases across Southwest Florida since the firm’s founding more than thirty years ago, with a sustained focus on rideshare-passenger and commercial-policy cases. The firm represents injured clients across Lee and Collier Counties — Bonita Springs, Fort Myers, Naples, Estero, Cape Coral, and Lehigh Acres — with offices in Bonita Springs and Fort Myers.

David is a Citadel grad (The Military College of South Carolina, undergraduate) and a University of South Carolina School of Law grad (JD). Martindale-Hubbell rates him AV-Preeminent; he belongs to the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum.

David has held a Florida real estate broker license for twenty-five years, a credential that shapes how the firm reads the property side of premises cases. The firm handles personal injury cases across Lee and Collier Counties, serving Fort Myers, Bonita Springs, Naples, Cape Oral, Estero, and Lehigh Acres, with offices at Windsor Place in Bonita Springs (main) and Fort Myers (satellite). Call 239-992-8259 for a free consultation.

This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship with Pittman Law Firm, P.L. The hiring of a lawyer is an important decision that should not be based solely on advertisements. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome in any future matter.