Lyft is suspending service in California

Lyft is hitting the brakes in California.

The company has announced it's suspending its rideshare operations in California effective at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday after a judge recently ordered it to classify its drivers as employees rather than independent contractors.

"We don't want to suspend operations," Lyft said. "We are going to keep up the fight for a benefits model that works for all drivers and our riders."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Lyft, along with its competitor Uber, have both faced scrutiny in recent years for the way they classify drivers as independent contractors, and the companies were hit with a lawsuit in California accusing them of violating the state's Assembly Bill 5 law. This law states that workers should be considered employees of a company if their performance is part of the company's "usual course" of business and is under its control and direction.

In its announcement on Thursday, Lyft argues classifying its drivers as employees and not independent contractors would lead to "reduced service" and to 80 percent of its drivers losing work. Judge Ethan Schulman ruled last week that there's an "overwhelming likelihood" the companies have been misclassifying their drivers. This decision also applied to Uber, which has similarly threatened to suspend service in California.

Update: Uber and Lyft will no longer be immediately suspending service in California after they were granted a temporary reprieve delaying the judge's order, CNN reports.