If you pull up a rideshare app in California, you expect a safe ride from point A to point B. If an accident happens, you expect the law to have your back. But behind the scenes in Sacramento, a massive legal war was brewing between rideshare giant Uber and California’s consumer attorneys—one that threatened to upend the rights of every single injured driver and passenger in the state.
On June 25, 2026, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 623 (The Fair Medical Billing & Rideshare Safety Act). This major piece of legislation is a direct compromise that stopped a bitter November ballot initiative fight.
For the general public, it introduces tougher safety standards. But if you are injured in a rideshare crash, it completely changes the rules of engagement for your medical treatment and your legal recovery.
Here is what California drivers and passengers need to know about SB 623 before it officially takes effect for accidents occurring on or after January 1, 2027.
The Corporate Strategy Behind the Ballot Fight: An Attempt to Limit Victims’ Rights
To fully appreciate the significance of SB 623, it is necessary to analyze the legal and financial implications of the initiative that corporations attempted to impose on California voters.
Uber invested tens of millions of dollars into aggressive public campaigns to qualify a sweeping legislative initiative for the November 2026 ballot. The corporation framed this measure as a fight against “unscrupulous” personal injury attorneys, attempting to convince the public that capping attorney fees would automatically leave more money for the victims. However, this campaign served as a corporate smokescreen to insulate the industry from accountability.
The true objective of the initiative was to make it financially unfeasible for everyday citizens to pursue legitimate legal claims against multi-billion-dollar corporations. By drastically capping contingency fees and imposing rigid restrictions on how medical expenses could be presented in court, the measure aimed to systematically disarm the opposition. Furthermore, these restrictions were not limited to rideshare claims; they would have applied to every single automobile accident across the state of California.
In personal injury litigation, a premier law firm invests substantial financial resources upfront—funding accident reconstruction experts, medical specialists, and trial preparation to effectively counter the legal teams of massive insurance syndicates. Had Uber’s initiative succeeded, injury victims would have been left entirely exposed. Without the financial backing and sophisticated counsel of a dedicated law firm, citizens would be forced to negotiate alone against corporate legal departments, inevitably resulting in the acceptance of nominal, lowball settlement offers.
Additionally, Uber sought to heavily restrict the presentation of medical billing in court. Medical treatment documentation is the primary evidentiary foundation used to establish the physical reality of a victim’s suffering. Restricting how these damages are calculated serves to artificially depress overall case valuations.
In response to this direct threat to consumer rights, consumer attorneys mobilized a counter-initiative focused strictly on corporate liability and passenger safety. Faced with a prolonged and costly political war, both sides negotiated a resolution. The resulting compromise, SB 623, successfully protected the constitutional right to legal representation by permanently defeating Uber’s statewide restrictions and narrowing the scope of the new rules strictly to the rideshare sector.
3 Major Ways SB 623 Changes Your Rideshare Injury Case
If you are involved in an accident involving a Transportation Network Company (like Uber or Lyft) on or after January 1, 2027, the playbook has changed in three major areas:
1. Caps on “Lien-Based” Medical Billing
When accident victims don’t have health insurance or can’t afford high deductibles out of pocket, personal injury lawyers often refer them to medical providers who treat them on a “lien”—meaning the doctor agrees to be paid later out of the final settlement or verdict.
SB 623 places a strict ceiling on these recoverable medical expenses in rideshare claims. Medical bills under a lien will now be capped at a geographic benchmark tied to the 70th percentile of billed charges for that specific treatment in that specific area. This is designed to prevent what the legislature called “excessive medical charges,” meaning your legal team and medical providers must be highly strategic about billing transparency from day one.
2. Forced Disclosure of Legal & Medical Relationships
Insurance defense lawyers will now have a legal right to pull back the curtain on the financial agreements between your law firm and your doctors. Under SB 623, any medical lien transfers, financing, factoring, or compensation relationships between personal injury firms and medical networks are completely discoverable in court. Furthermore, undisclosed lienholders are entirely barred from recovering funds from your settlement.
3. Stricter Safety and Background Checks
It wasn’t all corporate concessions; the new law forces rideshare companies to step up consumer safety. Starting in 2027, rideshare platforms must conduct rigorous annual background checks on all drivers and adhere to much tougher eligibility standards to keep dangerous drivers off the road.
Meticulous Legal Strategy Is Now More Critical Than Ever
SB 623 demonstrates that corporate insurance defense strategies in California are becoming increasingly sophisticated. While the new law preserves your fundamental right to retain counsel and pursue full civil justice, it introduces complex layers of statutory compliance regarding how medical damages must be documented, quantified, and presented.
If a law firm is unfamiliar with these localized 70th-percentile benchmarks or fails to strictly adhere to the new discovery and disclosure mandates, an injured victim’s financial recovery could be drastically compromised by corporate insurers.
At Bojat Law Group, we continuously monitor and adapt to shifting legislative frameworks so that our clients remain fully protected. If you have been injured in a California car accident or a rideshare collision, ensuring a legally sound medical and financial recovery is paramount.
Contact Bojat Law Group today at (818) 877-4878 to schedule a complimentary, confidential case evaluation with an experienced trial attorney.
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