That's about the closest value you'll find to what human life is economically valued at. Do you have an alternate measure that is grounded in anything?

That's what happens when you live in a company, not a country.

It's an economic measure for what should be an economic question. Taking the statistical value of a human life as a baseline feels pretty fair, and adjusting it upwards for special circumstances seems reasonable.

Are you arguing that because she was a nice person, she should be worth more? If she was a mean person, should she be worth less?

When you hail a regular taxi from Mike's Yellow Taxi, do you think you are subject to the "capricious and potentially negligent actions" of that driver, without being given a waiver to sign?

Do you assume they have any additional training beyond a "for hire" license, and do you expect that Mike's Yellow Taxi has trained them to act in a safe manner?

> I suspect that the average user doesn’t make a distinction between Uber and driver, and possibly assume that drivers are trained to act in a safe manner.

Are you for real?

This seems like a very surprising point of what happened here, sure, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear a $40 million award by a jury, but that’s kind of unusual from an arbitration judge isn’t it? The whole reason companies mandate arbitration in their EULAs (or equivalent) is so the can avoid 40 million judgments.

Arbitrators going to arbitrate then. There's a reason why you want to settle before jury verdicts and opt of arbitration whenever possible.

There's a huge legal distinction there, and it affects taxes, liability, etc. It's distinct from the lay understanding of "working for Uber".

If someone is doing a Doordash delivery, runs a red light and hits someone, is it Doordash's fault? If Doordash has a policy encouraging running red lights, sure; but if it's just because they as an individual made a bad decision, Doordash shouldn't be liable.

The legal system should assign blame to the guilty, not encourage hunting for a tenuous connection to whoever has the deepest pockets.

Except the distinction also applies in tort law, which you apparently missed.

I'm not arguing in defense of Uber, but to point out how ridiculous this legal jackpot is in the face of established law. Modern society seems to have thrown out any semblance of justice, fairness, and consistency in favor of who's got the best sob story or has the right skin color/ethnic group/income level/ political connections for that particular venue.