Law Commons^™

When “Disruption” Collides With Accountability: Holding Ridesharing Companies Liable For Acts Of Their Drivers, Alexi Pfeffer-Gillett

Scholarly Articles

When Uber launched in San Francisco in 2010, it took the city by storm. Here was a high-tech transportation service that seemingly did everything better than taxicabs: it was more convenient, more accessible, more comfortable, and even cheaper in many instances. Uber’s initial success inspired a number of lower-cost, nonprofessional “ridesharing” options, which have flourished.

Some skeptics, including taxicab operators, have decried the arrival of these peer-to-peer ridesharing services, now classified by regulators as Transportation Network Companies (TNCs). While such complaints could be easily dismissed as the dying groans of a “disrupted” industry, a string of passenger safety incidents has …

Evidentiary Surrogacy And Risk Allocation: Understanding Imputed Knowledge And Notice In Modern Agency Law, Marin Roger Scordato

Scholarly Articles

This article deals with the imputed knowledge rule in agency law. The basic rule imputes to a principal knowledge or notice received by an agent within the scope of the agent's authority. The principal is deemed to have received the information in question even in the absence of any evidence that the agent successfully transmitted it to the principal.

As the article clearly demonstrates, the imputed knowledge rule is currently characterized by complexity and contradiction. The analysis developed in the article suggests that this convolution and uncertainty is the result of the existence of a fundamental tension residing at the …