Aug. 21 (UPI) -- A judge has ruled that California's new law, Proposition 22, limiting app-based drivers to gig work, is unconstitutional.
A California appellate court previously ruled in October that Uber and Lyft must consider their drivers employees instead of gig workers, but voters in the state approved Proposition 22, which exempted the companies, from the state law the following month.
Uber, Lyft and Door Dash had pushed for the law, spending over $200 million campaigning for the initiative, The Verge reported, but labor organizations for the app-based drivers, such as the Service Employees International Union, opposed it.
In October, Uber drivers lost their lawsuit alleging the company had violated their rights by bombarding them with Proposition 22 messages ahead of the November election.
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The new law "is unconstitutional because it limits the power of a future legislature to define app-based drivers as workers subject to workers' compensation law," California Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch ruled Friday.
Roesch added that the law, which also applies to other app-based delivery drivers such as Door Dash, along with rideshare Uber and Lyft, is therefore unenforceable.
The requirement for a seventh-eights majority vote for the legislature to pass any amendments was unconstitutional, Roesch also said, but it could be amended instead by a simple majority vote.
"We believe the judge made a serious error by ignoring a century's worth of case law requiring the courts to guard the voters' right of initiative," Geoff Vetter, a spokesperson for the Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Coalition, said in a statement Friday. "We will file an immediate appeal and are confident the appellate court will uphold Prop 22."
Meanwhile, a lawyer for the drivers, Scott Kronland, told The New York Times the judge's ruling was "exactly right," adding their position was that it would "be upheld on appeal."
Earlier this year, Uber agreed to pay all British drivers a minimum wage and some benefits after the British Supreme Court ruled that Uber drivers were effectively employees and not independent contractors.
