A lawyer actually took this case? Somebody’s a bit overconfident about their persuasive ability (and a bit deluded about how lucrative even a successful suit would be).
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“As a result of the fact that people have actually seen what he did, Golden says he suffered severe emotional distress, humiliation, anxiety and the loss of his job.”
There, fixed that.
But really - what use is being rich and powerful if you can’t use both wealth and power to prevent people from knowing about your terrible, terrible behavior? I guess his mistake was going with Uber, which is a service available to any peon, and not an executive driving service that understands how things are supposed to work.
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Unfortunately, it’s very likely that the Uber driver violated California’s law requiring two-party consent prior to the recording of any conversations outside of a public space. We shall see.
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Or just confident about how many billable hours they can rack up before the issue is concluded, regardless of outcome. And if they were a smart lawyer, which I would imagine they were, they got a partial payment upfront as a retainer.
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I doubt it is “no win, no fee”; win or lose, the lawyers get paid.
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That was before he realized he couldn’t sue himself for the “emotional distress, humiliation, anxiety and the loss of his job” that he brought on himself. He’s also trying to get the footage suppressed in court, because “he accepts full responsibility for his actions” is the default public response when you can’t deny what happened or turn it around and blame your victim for it; now we get to see his actual response to the situation.
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That’s a GOOD thing!
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Please before he turns into a Darwin award.
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I’m wondering if there’s anything in Uber’s TOS that requires passengers to consent to recording if the driver chooses to record? (I’ve never hired them.)
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I think that statement was about the Uber driver not Benjamin “Douchebag” Golden… ie not a good thing. If Golden was loosing sleep over this, then I agree, he should be.
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You guys beat me to it! But with corporations being people, soon they will demand their 2nd Amendment rights and insist on weapons. Not just AR-15s and 50cal MGs, no they will want bigger toys like aircraft carriers and stealth bombers. Or they’ll contract that out to the US military like they do now.
Cheers, Smedley Butler
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That was my thought as well. But there are some factors that could play into it:
- Was the camera obvious? If so, then the passenger could be deemed to be on notice that he was being recorded. I’ve seen some taxis that even have a “you will be photographed” sticker on the door when you get in.
- Did the camera record audio or just video? I’m not that familiar with CA’s rule, but I believe that some states that have two party consent requirements only have it for audio recordings, and not silent video recordings.
Edited to add: Nevermind on point #2. The camera definitely recorded audio.
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One assumes. I’ve never gotten into a taxi that didn’t.
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Well, at least now we have a legal sum associated with the value of upper class white male privilege.
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The only reasonable response to this is über driver sues abusive Taco Bell exec for 5 billion dollars.
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I am not (I repeat, NOT) defending this guy or his actions BUT…
I find it a little bit questionable that BoingBoing chose to use a GIF that is very clearly sped up from the original footage.
The GIF was the first place I saw this, and my thought was “WOW. That was a vicious assault.” Then I watched the original, and the difference is pretty stark. It feels gross and very unjournalistic (assuming BoingBoing strives for that sort of thing, and my impression was that they did). Maybe I’m taking myself too seriously, but it seems almost like entering tampered evidence into the public record 
/cc @frauenfelder
Anyhow, sorry to be a party pooper. (I don’t agree this guy deserves a settlement.)
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I wonder if the distinction between private contractor vs licensed taxi operator is going to make a difference in the legality of the recording.
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Pretty sure the counter argument is he lost a career selling industrial waste in woodpulp tortillas to drunks and addicts at 3:00AM.
And “Dawwww… I was caught beating up a cab driver and now I can’t give ass cancer to 30% of the American Population.” supposes this 'roid raging fool has feelings to hurt in the first place.
He does. All the emotional range of a 200lb 2 year old, and any perceived slight becomes justification for violence.
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Preach.
