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Wrongful Death
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New Orleans Uber & Lyft Accident Lawyers
In a rideshare crash, the single most important fact is not who hit whom. It is what the app was doing at the moment of impact - because that one detail can be the difference between no coverage at all and a $1 million policy.
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The Short Version
Uber & Lyft accidents - the quick answers
- Coverage depends on the app. App off: only the driver's personal policy - which often excludes rideshare entirely.
- App on, waiting for a ride: limited contingent coverage from Uber or Lyft.
- Ride accepted, or passenger on board: a $1 million liability policy typically applies.
- That $1 million usually includes uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage - critical if another driver caused the crash.
- Passengers are almost never at fault, which makes yours one of the cleanest liability positions in injury law.
- Uber and Lyft will argue the driver is an independent contractor, not an employee.
- You generally have 2 years to file (for crashes on or after July 1, 2024).
Hurt in an Uber or Lyft? We're on your side.
You did the responsible thing. You did not drive. You got in the back of somebody else's car in the Quarter at one in the morning, and you were sitting there looking at your phone when it happened, and none of it was remotely your fault.
And now you are in a claim with an eleven-figure technology company that will tell you, politely, that the driver is an independent contractor, that coverage depends on facts you have no way to verify, and that the app data you would need is theirs. The Law Offices of Chip Forstall have spent two generations getting people out of exactly this kind of corner.
- Demand the app data that proves which coverage period applies
- Identify every available policy - theirs, the driver's, the other driver's, and yours
- Find the UM/UIM coverage inside the rideshare policy that nobody mentions
- Answer the independent contractor argument
- Deal with Uber's and Lyft's claims apparatus so they stop calling you
- Preserve the crash report, the footage, and the vehicle data
- Prove the full, long-term value of a back-seat injury
- Negotiate hard - and file suit if they refuse to be fair
What to do after a rideshare crash
One of these steps takes ten seconds and can be worth a million dollars. It is the first one.
1
Screenshot the ride - immediately
Before you do anything else. The trip screen, the driver's name and photo, the plate, the time. Rideshare coverage turns entirely on the app's status at the moment of impact, and that screen is your proof.
2
Call 911
Get police and paramedics, and make sure a report is written that identifies the vehicle as a rideshare and names the company.
3
Get medical attention
Back-seat passengers get hurt badly and quietly. Go get checked, even if the adrenaline has you convinced you are fine.
4
Report it in the app
Both Uber and Lyft have an in-app accident reporting flow. Use it. It creates a record on their system with a timestamp.
5
Get the other driver's information too
If another vehicle was involved, you may have claims against both. Do not assume the rideshare company is the only defendant.
6
Call the Forstalls before giving a statement
Rideshare insurers move fast and settle cheap with people who do not know what period they were in, or what that period is worth.
It All Turns on One Screen
What was the app doing when it happened?
It sounds like a technicality. It is the whole case. If the driver was offline, you may be looking at a personal policy that excludes rideshare entirely. If a ride was accepted or you were in the car, a $1 million policy typically applies. Same crash, same injuries, wildly different outcome - decided by a single screen on somebody's phone. Screenshot yours.
How rideshare coverage actually works
Uber and Lyft do not have one insurance policy. They have three, and which one applies depends entirely on what the app was doing.
Period 0 - App Off
The driver is just a person driving a car. Only their personal auto policy applies - and many personal policies contain an express exclusion for rideshare activity, which can leave a serious gap.
Period 1 - App On, Waiting
The driver is logged in and waiting for a request. Uber and Lyft provide contingent liability coverage in this window, but at much lower limits than most people assume.
Periods 2 & 3 - En Route or Passenger Aboard
Once a ride is accepted - through pickup and until the trip ends - a $1 million third-party liability policy typically applies. This is the coverage everyone is fighting about.
The UM/UIM Coverage Nobody Mentions
That $1 million typically includes uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. So if another driver caused the crash and carried Louisiana's bare minimum limits, the rideshare policy may still be there for you. Insurers do not volunteer this.
The Independent Contractor Defense
Uber and Lyft will insist their drivers are contractors, not employees, to limit the companies' own exposure. That argument affects some theories of liability - but it does not make their insurance policy disappear.
The 51% Rule
Since January 1, 2026, anyone found 51% or more at fault recovers nothing. As a passenger, this rarely threatens you - which is precisely why your position is so strong.
This page is general information, not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts - call us and we'll tell you where you actually stand.
How rideshare claims get fought
You are not dealing with a local adjuster and a State Farm policy. You are dealing with a claims apparatus built by a technology company to process a very large number of these efficiently - and efficiently, in this context, means cheaply.
Here is what they actually do.
“The App Was Off”The single most valuable fact in the case, and they are the ones who hold the data
“Independent Contractor”Deployed immediately to distance the company from the driver it dispatched to you
The Fast, Cheap OfferMade early, to a person in pain who has never seen a $1 million policy in their life
Blaming the Other DriverTwo insurers pointing at each other while your medical bills keep arriving
“Minor Impact”A back-seat passenger with no headrest and no warning is not a minor impact, whatever the bumper looks like
Silence on UM CoverageNobody is going to tell you the $1 million policy may cover you even when someone else caused it
Who gets hurt in rideshare crashes
The passenger is the obvious one, and the strongest position in the entire case - a passenger is almost never at fault for anything. But rideshare crashes injure a lot of people who never opened the app at all.
Every one of these is a different claim, against a different set of policies, and figuring out which applies is the first real work in the case.
Uber PassengersLyft PassengersRideshare DriversOther DriversPassengers in Other CarsPedestrians Struck by a RideshareCyclists Struck by a RideshareMotorcyclistsDrunk Driving CrashesDistracted DrivingPickup & Drop-Off CollisionsFood Delivery DriversAssaults by DriversWrongful Death
Common rideshare accident injuries
Back-seat passengers get hurt in ways front-seat occupants do not. There is often no headrest worth the name, frequently no seatbelt being worn on a short trip across town, and absolutely no warning - because you were looking at your phone, not the road.
That combination produces a distinct injury pattern, and one that is very easy for an adjuster to call minor:
Whiplash & Neck InjuriesTraumatic Brain Injury & ConcussionBack & Spinal InjuriesHerniated DiscsFacial InjuriesBroken BonesKnee Injuries From the Seat BackShoulder & Seatbelt InjuriesInternal InjuriesPost-Traumatic StressWrongful Death
You were the safest person in the car. That is worth something.
A rideshare passenger occupies the cleanest liability position in all of injury law. You were not driving. You were not choosing the route or the speed or the lane. You had no ability to prevent any of it, and no adjuster on earth can build a comparative fault argument against a person sitting in the back seat looking at their phone.
That matters more than it did two years ago. Since January 2026, anyone found 51% or more at fault in Louisiana recovers nothing - and the entire insurance industry has reoriented around pushing blame onto injured people. As a passenger, you are almost immune to that strategy.
So the fight in your case is not really about fault at all. It is about coverage: which policy applies, and for how much. Which means the whole thing turns on evidence you can get in ten seconds with a screenshot.
Compensation in a rideshare case
Louisiana law sorts what you can recover into two buckets: the losses you can add up on paper, and the ones you cannot. Both are real, and both are recoverable.
What makes a rideshare case different is not the categories. It is the ceiling. Where an ordinary Louisiana driver may carry the state minimum of $15,000, a rideshare trip in progress typically carries a $1 million policy behind it. The question is never whether your injuries are worth pursuing. It is whether anyone finds the right policy.
Economic damages
- Emergency room, hospital & surgery bills
- Future medical care & rehabilitation
- Physical therapy & ongoing treatment
- Lost wages and time off work
- Lost future earning capacity
- Out-of-pocket and transportation costs
Non-economic damages
- Pain and suffering
- Mental anguish & emotional distress
- Permanent scarring & disfigurement
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Disability & loss of independence
- Loss of consortium
What actually changes when a lawyer steps in
In a rideshare case, almost all of the evidence that decides coverage is sitting on a server owned by the other side. Getting it is not a formality. It is the case.
We demand the trip data. The app status, the timestamps, the GPS trail, the driver's history - the records that establish exactly which coverage period was active at the moment of impact. That is the fact worth a million dollars, and it lives on their system, not yours.
We identify every policy in play, not just the obvious one. The rideshare liability policy, the rideshare UM/UIM coverage, the driver's personal policy, the other driver's policy, and your own UM coverage. In a serious injury case, the difference between finding two of those and finding all five is frequently the difference between a settlement and a lifetime of care.
And we make sure a passenger is not talked into a fast, small number by a company that processes thousands of these a year. Insurers keep track of which firms actually file suit and which ones take the first offer. That reputation is priced into everything they put in front of you.
Mistakes that can hurt your claim
Rideshare claims are lost by people who do not realize they were holding the most valuable evidence in the case in their hand at the moment it happened, and then closed the app.
None of the mistakes below are fatal on their own. But the first one is the one we wish everyone knew.
- Not screenshotting the trip before the app updates or the ride disappears
- Assuming the rideshare company's insurance will simply do the right thing
- Accepting a fast settlement before anyone knows which policy applies
- Giving a recorded statement to the rideshare insurer without a lawyer
- Not reporting the crash inside the app, which creates a timestamped record
- Failing to get the other driver's information because you were “just the passenger”
- Assuming you have no claim because you were not driving
- Posting about the night out on social media
Recent results for injured clients
A few examples of what we've recovered for people seriously hurt by someone else's negligence.
$2,200,000
Auto Accident
$1,500,000
Catastrophic Injury
$975,000
Serious Injury
$750,000
Head Injury
$485,000
Pedestrian Accident
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome. Every case is different and must be evaluated on its own facts.
The Full Picture
Understanding your Uber or Lyft accident claim
Rideshare cases are unusual in one specific way: fault is often obvious and almost never the fight. The fight is over coverage - and coverage turns on a single fact that lives on somebody else's server.
The most valuable ten seconds of your life
Take out your phone. Screenshot the trip. The driver's name, the vehicle, the plate, the time, the route. Do it now, before the app refreshes, before the trip drops off your recent list, before anything else happens.
Here is why. Rideshare insurance is not one policy. It is three, and which one applies depends entirely on what the app was doing at the precise moment of the collision. If the driver was offline, you may be dealing with a personal auto policy that expressly excludes rideshare driving. If they were logged in and waiting for a request, there is contingent coverage, but not much. And if a ride had been accepted - or you were sitting in the back seat - a one million dollar liability policy typically applies.
Same crash. Same injuries. Same everything. And the difference between those outcomes is a single screen on a phone that is not yours.
Why a passenger's position is so strong
If you were a passenger, understand what you actually have: the cleanest liability posture in all of injury law. You were not driving. You did not pick the route, the speed, the lane, or the moment to change it. You could not have prevented any of it.
That is worth more now than it was two years ago. On January 1, 2026, Louisiana adopted a rule barring recovery entirely for anyone found 51% or more at fault, and the entire insurance industry has responded by investing far more heavily in blaming injured people. It is a strategy that simply does not work against someone sitting in a back seat looking at their phone.
Which means your case is not really about whether you deserve to recover. It is about how much coverage exists, and whether anybody finds all of it.
“The fight is not fault. The fight is coverage - and the evidence is on their server.”
The million-dollar policy that also covers other people's mistakes
Here is the part that even a lot of lawyers miss. That $1 million rideshare policy typically includes uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.
Read that again in the context of Louisiana, where the state minimum liability limit is $15,000, and where a very large number of drivers carry exactly that or nothing at all. So imagine you are in an Uber, and a driver runs a light and hits you, and that driver has minimum coverage. Fifteen thousand dollars does not pay for one night in a trauma bay.
But you were in a rideshare with a ride in progress. The UM coverage inside that policy may be available to you - for the negligence of a completely different driver. Nobody is going to volunteer that. It is one of the most valuable things a lawyer finds in these cases, and it is invisible to anyone who does not know to look.
The independent contractor argument
Uber and Lyft will tell you, early and often, that their drivers are independent contractors and not employees. That argument is real, and it does affect certain theories of liability against the company itself.
What it does not do is make the insurance policy disappear. The coverage exists because the law requires it to exist, and because these companies made a business decision to carry it. Do not let the phrase “independent contractor” convince you that there is nothing there. There is usually quite a lot there.
What we need from you
Screenshot the trip. Report it in the app. Get medical care even if the adrenaline is telling you not to bother, because back-seat injuries surface late and quietly.
Get the other driver's information too, even though you were “just the passenger.” You may have claims against more than one party, and more than one policy.
Do not accept a fast offer from a company that handles thousands of these a year, before anyone has established which policy applies or what your injury will actually cost.
And stay off social media. A photo from the night out will be exhibit A, and context does not travel well.
It costs nothing to find out where you stand
You do not owe us anything to have this conversation. The consultation is free, and if we take your case, you pay no attorney's fee unless we recover money for you. If we do not win, you owe us nothing.
Two generations of this family have spent nearly 50 years doing exactly this work for our neighbors in New Orleans. Call us at 504-483-3400, and let's talk about what your case is really worth.
Uber & Lyft accident FAQ
I was a passenger in an Uber. Whose insurance pays?
If a ride was in progress, a $1 million liability policy typically applies through the rideshare company. That is the coverage that exists specifically for you. Depending on the facts, the driver's personal policy, the other driver's policy, and even your own uninsured motorist coverage may also come into play. Identifying every available policy is one of the most valuable things a lawyer does in these cases.
What if the driver's app was off?
Then the rideshare company's coverage generally does not apply, and you may be limited to the driver's personal auto policy - which frequently contains an express exclusion for rideshare activity. This is why the app's status at the moment of impact is the single most important fact in the case, and why screenshotting your trip immediately matters so much.
Another driver caused the crash, not my Uber driver. Am I out of luck?
Very likely not. The $1 million rideshare policy typically includes uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. If the at-fault driver carried Louisiana's bare minimum limits - or none at all - that UM coverage may still be available to you. It is one of the most valuable and least-known provisions in rideshare insurance.
Uber says the driver is an independent contractor. Does that end my claim?
No. That argument is about the company's own direct liability, not about whether insurance coverage exists. The rideshare policy is still there, and it is still available. Do not let that phrase talk you out of a valid claim.
I was a rideshare driver and I got hurt. Do I have a claim?
Possibly. It depends on who was at fault, and on which coverage period you were in at the time. Drivers have a more complicated coverage picture than passengers do, and personal policies often exclude rideshare activity entirely. It is worth a conversation, and the conversation is free.
I was hit by an Uber while walking or cycling. What now?
You may have a claim against the rideshare policy if the driver was on a trip or en route to one. The same three-period coverage structure applies, and the same question controls: what was the app doing? We can demand that data.
They offered me a settlement already. Should I take it?
Not before you know which policy applies and what your injuries will actually cost. Early offers arrive because early offers are cheap, and back-seat injuries - particularly neck, back, and head injuries - routinely turn out to be far more serious than they seemed in the first week.
Do I really need a lawyer if I was just a passenger?
The liability is usually clear, which is exactly why the other side wants to settle with you quickly and cheaply. The entire value of your case lives in coverage and in the true cost of your injury, and both of those are things insurers are very good at obscuring. The consultation is free, so there is no cost to finding out.
The Forstalls Take Care of It All
Hurt in an Uber or Lyft? Let's find every policy.
Tell us what happened. Your consultation is free, there's no obligation, and you pay nothing unless we win.