Uber threatened for months to take away Californians Freedom to Choose Medical Treatment after a crash. Then the ballot fight just… stopped. Governor Newsom signed SB 623 on June 25, 2026, and that’s the law Californians actually got. Not what Uber pitched. Not what accident lawyers who wanted to protect a client’s freedom to choose medical treatment, wanted either, not entirely.
What Attorneys Were Fighting For
Trial attorneys didn’t sit back and complain when Uber’s ballot initiative was announced in October 2026. Instead, Consumer Attorneys of California (CAOC) , a statewide association of plaintiff-side trial lawyers, qualified their own measure for the ballot, roughly $75 million behind it, and it focused on rideshare safety. This included tighter, annual background checks, monthly public reports on driver misconduct, and risk scores shown to passengers before they even get in the car to determine if they want to take a ride with the driver.
That measure landed while Uber was already facing thousands of sexual assault claims involving its drivers nationwide. Those safety provisions didn’t disappear once the ballot fight ended, instead they got folded into SB 623 instead.
In contrast, Uber’s pitch was simple: to rein in egregious legal fees and stop inflated medical bills. CAOC told a different story. Uber who is self-insured caused their insurance reserves to climb from $9.8 billion to $12.5 billion in 2025, and part of the executive bonus pool was tied directly to insurance reform work against trial attorneys. Due to a negotiated effort between Uber and CAOC, both ballot measures got pulled. The tension behind them didn’t disappear, though. Some remnants still lie inside the statute that replaced the fight.
A Compromise That Cost Both Sides Millions
Nine figures, each. That’s roughly what Uber and the Consumer Attorneys of California poured into dueling ballot measures headed for November 2026. Then, instead of letting voters sort it out, both sides walked into a room and made a deal.
SB 623 is the deal that was written into law. It passed the legislature, got Newsom’s signature, and was chaptered by the Secretary of State on June 25, 2026, right before the cutoff to yank competing initiatives off the ballot.
Senator Tom Umberg authored the bill and chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. He called the outcome as proof that negotiation beats a bruising public fight. Uber and CAOC, put out a joint statement echoing that line almost word for word: increasing safety standards for Uber passengers, making it illegal for attorneys to charge for negotiating medical liens, access to medical care preserved, and legal representation could maintain contracted-for attorney’s fees.
Why This Counts as a Win for Injured Californians
Uber’s original proposition included fee caps for attorney’s fees and medical costs to 25% and the erasure of being able to see a doctor on a deferred pay basis. It became clear however that the fee cap was never the whole ask. Uber used that threat as leverage to push for far more: an end to vicarious liability, mandatory utilization review on medical expenses, elimination of common carrier status. Any one of those alone would have reshaped how injured victims could get compensation from vehicle crashes in California. Due to the negotiation, none of it made it into SB 623. Trial lawyers raised enough money and pushed back hard enough to force a narrower deal, limited to medical billing on rideshare cases and rideshare safety.
Prior to that – CAOC delivered three other wins. SB 1107 raised California’s minimum auto liability limits from $15,000 to $30,000 for the first time in over fifty years, meaning victims can now recover against bigger policies. SB 447 opened the door to recovering pre-death pain and suffering. And a change to the Code of Civil Procedure extended the notice period for opposing a summary judgment motions (MSJs) from 28 days to 75 days, giving attorneys more than double the time to respond before a case gets tossed on an MSJ.
This Law Doesn’t Touch Every Car Accident
Uber’s original proposal would have reached every crash in California. SB 623 doesn’t. It covers rideshare accidents only, Uber and Lyft specifically, and stops there. Waymo and other autonomous vehicles sit outside the law entirely.
Timing matters too. Nothing about this law reaches backward. Only accidents happening on or after January 1, 2027 fall under it, so a crash last month plays by the old rules no matter what SB 623 says.
What SB 623 Actually Does
Cut through the legal language, and here’s what changed:
- Recoverable past medical expenses from lien-based providers are capped at the 70th percentile of FAIR Health billed charges for the same service and region; the collateral source rule stays untouched
- Amounts above the cap are void, unenforceable, and inadmissible, no referencing them in front of a jury
- Recovering above the cap requires clear and convincing evidence plus expert testimony that the treatment was exceptionally rare, with court sign-off before trial
- Bills must be itemized to the procedure-code level (CPT, HCPCS, ICD), and providers get 30 days to fix deficient records once notified
- Lien sales, transfers, and financing arrangements must be disclosed within 30 days and before any settlement
- Attorneys can’t refer clients to providers they hold a financial stake in, can’t take kickbacks or pay referral bonuses tied to lien-based treatment, and can’t charge extra to “reduce” a lien
- Providers can’t agree to shrink a lien before treatment happens, only after
- Violations mean State Bar discipline for attorneys and professional discipline for providers
- Rideshare companies face stricter annual background checks and driver eligibility standards
Notably absent: the 25% cap on attorney contingency fees together with the cost of medical treatment that Uber originally pushed. That provision didn’t survive.
What the 70th Percentile Cap Looks Like in Practice
Take a Partial removal of spine bone with release of lower spinal cord or nerves and/or removal of disc – CPT code 63030, billed in Beverly Hills. To determine how much the doctor can bill he uses the website fairhealthconsumer.org puts in his zip code and CPT code 63030 and then moves the bracket to 70% and $25,220 is what he can bill for a rideshare case. Thus, under the 70th percentile Fair Health standard, recovery gets pegged to where that charge falls on the 70% percentile bracket not to whatever number appears on the original bill.
Why Contingency Fees Exist in the First Place
Contingency fees exist so a person can walk into a law office and take on a company worth hundreds of billions without paying a cent up front. The attorney fronts everything instead: medical records, expert witnesses, depositions, years of overhead, and only sees a dollar if the case wins.
Uber’s original 25% cap on attorney’s fees plus the client’s medical costs, would have gutted that math for any crash case. It would hurt the fender benders as well as the more serious cases. Cases with years of treatment, disputed liability, and a corporate defense team on the other side. SB 623 never touched that number. It went after medical liens (bills that get paid at the end of the case) instead of rideshare accidents, and left attorney fees and non-lien doctors (those that defer payments) exactly where they were.
A Trial Attorney’s Perspective: Alina Landver, Esq.
This outcome carries real consequences all the same. Attorneys across the state fought hard against the original proposal, and many, including California Uber accident lawyers, are still working through what the medical lien capped at 70% of the Fair Health Plan means for their clients’ access to treatment.
“Providers who treat patients on a lien basis (delay pay) already wait years to get paid back. Tie that reimbursement to 70% of Fair Health, and a lot of them simply stop taking these cases. Once doctors pull out, injured people lose access to the treatment they need, and that’s the part nobody’s talking about enough,” says Alina Landver, trial attorney at Landver Law Personal Injury Attorneys.
How We Got Here
SB 623 also known as the Fair Medical Billing & Rideshare Safety Act wasn’t built for this from the start. Lawmakers gutted and rewrote it in a matter of weeks in June 2026, creating legislation that allowed both sides to walk away from a ballot fight before the withdrawal deadline hit.
Attorneys, medical providers, financing companies that purchase medical liens due to the enactment of SB 623 are now planning how to approach rideshare crash cases after January 1, 2027.
What This Means If You’re in an Accident Right Now
Nothing changes today. SB 623 applies only to rideshare accidents on or after January 1, 2027, so anyone hurt before that date, rideshare or not, still falls under existing rules.
Once it does take effect, the shift lands in one place: lien-based medical treatment after a rideshare crash. This law does not affect attorney’s fees. It creates a ceiling on what a lien provider can collect, now pegged to the 70th percentile of FAIR Health rates instead of the original bill.
If you would like to have a conversation with an attorney about your rideshare on any other type of personal injury case it costs nothing up front, and for anyone facing treatment that runs past January 2027, knowing how the lien cap applies now beats finding out once the bills arrive and the settlement offers from the insurance companies.
Contact Information
Landver Law Personal Injury Attorneys
Alina Landver
8730 Wilshire Blvd, Suite 416,
Beverly Hills, CA 90211
Telephone: (844) 4-LAWINJURY
(844) 452 – 9465
Email: info@landverlaw.com
Website: https://landverpersonalinjury.com/