Georgia DoorDash Drivers File Class Action Lawsuit to Recover Allegedly Withheld Tips

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On-demand food delivery service DoorDash faces a proposed class action lawsuit filed over its alleged failure to pay drivers 100 percent of their tips despite promising to do so.

Filed in Georgia’s Northern District, the 27-page lawsuit focuses on DoorDash’s alleged “improper embezzlement” of delivery drivers’ tips that the plaintiffs argue rightfully belong to the workers on top of their guaranteed pay for each delivery. DoorDash, the case says, has deceptively misrepresented the true nature of drivers’ pay by claiming on its website that drivers who sign up to work for the company will receive “base pay + 100% of tips” from customers. Instead, the suit charges, DoorDash “keeps a substantial portion of this additional charge for itself.”

Per the complaint, when a customer places an order with DoorDash, the individual has the opportunity to leave an additional tip on top of the default tip, called the “Dasher Tip,” for the driver. The lawsuit traces DoorDash’s alleged tipping impropriety to 2017, when the company allegedly changed its tipping policy to use customer tips to pay drivers’ base rates. According to the case, this contradicts DoorDash’s explicit representations that drivers will receive a guaranteed minimum amount if “the base pay + tip is less than the guaranteed minimum offered.” If the base pay on an order plus the customer tip is greater than DoorDash’s guaranteed amount, the case continues, then drivers are promised to receive the base rate plus the tip.

As the plaintiffs tell it, this policy switch was deceptive to customers and drivers.

“This policy was deceptive to consumers and drivers because tips are tips are [sic] meant to go to the drivers on top of whatever base pay the driver gets for the delivery—it is meant to be in addition to wages, not a substitution for them,” the suit reads. 

The case looks to cover both a proposed national class and Georgia-only class of DoorDash drivers who made deliveries for the company within the last six years and did not receive the total amount of tips paid by a customer who “specifically designated that amount as the gratuity for the driver.”