Trial Lawyers Are Profiting from Making Your Transportation More Expensive

Trial lawyers engaged in frivolous litigation are making everything, including your daily transportation, more expensive. While you pay higher costs, the trial lawyers are the ones pocketing the profits.

Last month, Americans for Tax Reform published a report exposing how lawsuit abuse by trial lawyers leads to billions of dollars in costs for consumers. According to the American Tort Reform Association, each household now bears more than $6,600 in hidden costs per year related to litigation, and these costs continue to rise.

At the center of the issue is the legal principle of vicarious liability. The doctrine holds a superior party, such as a business, responsible for the wrongful acts of a subordinate committed within the scope of their employment or independent contractor relationship, even if the business was not involved in the wrongful conduct.

In the context of rideshare companies, more formally known as Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), vicarious liability creates an incentive for excessive litigation because TNCs are seen as dependable financial targets due to their insurance coverage, which often reaches $1 million per incident. Auto insurance premiums for drivers have surged more than 50 percent on average between 2021 and 2024. In turn, the higher litigation-related and insurance costs have an inflationary effect on the price of fares for riders. When trial lawyers pursue frivolous lawsuits, you pay the price.

There is a solution to stop this lawsuit abuse.

As part of the 2005 surface transportation reauthorization package, Congress included a provision, today known as the “Graves Amendment,” which established federal preemption against state laws that had imposed vicarious liability on rental car companies for accidents that were caused by drivers without any negligence by the company. While rental companies can still be held liable for actual negligence, this amendment has prevented predatory lawsuits which clog up the court system and increase costs that are ultimately passed along to consumers.

Congress is currently on new surface transportation reauthorization legislation, with current provisions set to expire in September 2026. In a legislative markup last month, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved an amendment to the “BUILD America 250 Act” that would introduce Graves-style protections for TNCs. The Committee also passed a separate, but similar, provision that would introduce Graves-style protections for the peer-to-peer car sharing model.

The trial lawyer lobby unsurprisingly wasted no time in viciously attacking these amendments on the day of their passage. The “American Association for Justice,” also known as the “Association of Trial Lawyers,” were apparently unaware of existing Graves Amendment protections when they declared that these new amendments are “unprecedented.” Ironically, the Association of Trial Lawyers accused the legislation of “prioritizing profits over people.”

The American people can see that the real issue is trial lawyers prioritizing their own profits, even as it costs each household thousands of dollars per year. Congress should continue its efforts to defend consumers by enacting these Graves-style protections into law.