§ 150E.002.Applicability of Chapter

An applicability provision with four cumulative conditions, and the fourth is the one that decides its scope.

The chapter applies only to an action or arbitration proceeding in which: a transportation network company is a defendant; the claimant seeks recovery for loss of property, bodily injury, or death; the claim arises out of the ownership, use, operation, or possession of a network vehicle while the vehicle’s driver or passenger was logged on to the company’s digital network; and the theory of recovery against the company is based on one of two things.

Those two theories are the heart of it: the ownership, operation, design, manufacture, or maintenance of the digital network accessed by a driver or passenger; or the relationship, affiliation, or interaction with a driver logged on to the network.

The second theory is the one these cases are built on. It is the vicarious-liability route — the argument that the company answers for its driver because of the relationship between them, whatever that relationship is called.

The first covers the platform as a product, treating the app itself as the thing that failed.

"While logged on" is a bright line and it cuts both ways. A driver between fares with the app running is within the chapter; the same driver with the app closed is an ordinary motorist and the company has no involvement.

Note that the claimant may be the passenger. The condition speaks of the driver or passenger being logged on, so a passenger’s own use of the network brings the claim within the chapter.

A claim against the driver personally is outside this chapter entirely and proceeds as ordinary motor vehicle negligence.