Uber's attempts to defeat a false advertising lawsuit recently failed. The Southern District of California largely denied the ride share company's motion to dismiss and motion to strike class allegations. A taxi company claimed Uber violated the Lanham Act with allegedly false and misleading statements concerning passenger safety that compared Uber and traditional taxicab rides. The court narrowly granted the motion to dismiss regarding Uber's claim that certain statements to the media were protected as commercial speech, but left intact the majority of the complaint's claims. It rejected Uber's other arguments that the safety statements were non-actionable as puffery or expressions of aspiration and that plaintiff failed to adequately allege proximate causation. Furthermore, the court rejected Uber's motion to strike the class allegations, because Rule 12(f) is "not the proper procedural vehicle for challenging class claims."
Delux Cab, LLC v. Uber Techs., Inc., No. 16-3057 (S.D. Cal. Apr. 13, 2017).
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