The Ninth Circuit has again refused to halt Seattle’s app-based worker deactivation ordinance, allowing the city’s notice and policy requirements to remain in force while Uber and Instacart continue their constitutional challenge.
In an amended opinion, the court affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction. The ordinance requires covered platforms to give workers a written deactivation policy and to ensure that the policy is reasonably related to safe and efficient operations. Assuming those duties regulate speech, the panel treated them as commercial-speech requirements and found them permissible under the standard for compelled factual disclosures. It also rejected the companies’ vagueness argument.
The court withdrew its earlier March opinion and issued this superseding decision. Judge Mark Bennett dissented in part, saying the First Amendment claim raised serious questions and should be remanded for further consideration. The ruling does not decide the final merits, and the parties may seek rehearing from the amended opinion.
Official Ninth Circuit opinion
