Cotter

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY APPROVAL OF CLASS ACTION SETTLEMENT

Re: Dkt. No. 169

The plaintiffs in this case — three people who have worked as Lyft drivers — move for preliminary approval of a class settlement agreement they reached with Lyft. Five other Lyft drivers, along with the Teamsters — a labor, union that is seeking to organize Lyft drivers — have filed objections to the agreement, and urge the Court to deny the motion for preliminary approval.

The motion for preliminary approval is denied because the settlement agreement does not fall within the range of reasonableness. Most glaringly, counsel for the plaintiffs pegged the $12.25 million settlement figure primarily to the estimated value of the drivers’ claim for mileage reimbursement. But the lawyers estimated the value of the reimbursement claim to be $64 million, ‘when in fact, using their own methodology, it is worth more than $126 million. The drivers were therefore short *932 changed by half on their reimbursement claim alone. Moreover, counsel’s treatment of the drivers’. claim for penalties under the Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) was arbitrary, and may have shortchanged the State of…