If you haven’t ridden one yet, it’s likely you’ve had one fly by you on the sidewalk. Electric scooters – or e-scooters – have quickly descended upon most major cities in America. These app-based scooters let a user ride across the city at up to 15 m.p.h. and then discard the scooter wherever the rider happens to disembark. While relatively new, injuries from riding these scooters are already fairly common, and the scooters also have even been involved in some fatal accidents already. With the use of e-scooters on the rise, an employer should be prepared for the potential legal problems they create.

The increasing popularity of these scooters indicates that some employees will, sooner or later, jump on an e-scooter during work hours. Thus, an employer should lose no time in doing the following:

  • Draft new language for the employee handbook relating to e-scooters;
  • Add e-scooters to an existing section of the handbook that regulates employee use of bikes, motorcycles, cars, or other company vehicles; and
  • Consider providing/mandating safety equipment if the business allows employees to ride e-scooters while on the job.

Although an employer should prepare, it’s worth noting that the law isn’t fully developed yet concerning the contours of employer liability relating to employee use of e-scooters. In New York, for example, an employer was held liable for fines that workers incurred when the workers were operating e-bikes on the employer’s behalf. Such liability could result from an employee’s failure to wear proper safety equipment, riding in an unauthorized manner or off-limits area or the city, or failing to obey traffic signals, among other things. In California, these could be costs or expenses attributable to and requiring reimbursement by the employer under Labor Code § 2802.

Beyond fines, an employer could be liable for injury that occurs when an employee is riding an e-scooter. For example, when an employee uses his/her own car during work hours to perform services for the employer, an employer may incur liability. The same could be applied to e-scooters. In general, if an employee uses an e-scooter to come to or from work, the employer generally would not be liable for injuries that occur (the “Going and Coming Rule”). However, if the employee uses the e-scooter during the workday to accomplish tasks for the employer or is on an errand for the employer while commuting to/from work, the employer may be held liable. Thus, the ubiquity of e-scooters may lead to more employees using them to run errands during work hours, which could in turn result in an uptick in employer liability.

E-scooters have already been the target of numerous legal battles, so we expect the law regulating e-scooters to continue to evolve. Employers would be wise to keep an eye on these developments.

***Photo credit to Lime

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Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily JournalThe Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is “brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up.” Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as “outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a “phenomenal strategist” and “one of the top employment litigators in the country.”

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law JournalBloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.

Photo of Cole Lewis Cole Lewis

Cole Lewis is an associate in the Labor & Employment Department.

Cole graduated from UCLA School of Law, where he worked as a law clerk for Public Counsel of Los Angeles and advocated for benefit recipients in the Department of Public Social Services.

Cole Lewis is an associate in the Labor & Employment Department.

Cole graduated from UCLA School of Law, where he worked as a law clerk for Public Counsel of Los Angeles and advocated for benefit recipients in the Department of Public Social Services. He has also previously worked as a summer associate in Proskauer’s Labor & Employment Department.

Prior to law school, Cole received his Bachelor’s degree in Journalism at Indiana University, where he graduated cum laude.