Key Points

  • The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction sought by Uber and Instacart against Seattle's App-Based Worker Deactivation Rights Ordinance.
  • Assuming without deciding that the ordinance regulates speech, the majority held the speech is commercial and that the written-notice requirement satisfies the Zauderer test for compelled commercial disclosures.
  • The majority held that the requirement that deactivation policies be reasonably related to safe and efficient operations regulates at most speech related to unlawful activity and would survive even Central Hudson review.
  • All three judges agreed the ordinance's "reasonably related" standard is not unconstitutionally vague.
  • Judge Bennett dissented in part, writing that the ordinance compels speech that is not purely factual and uncontroversial, and would have remanded for the district court to apply Zauderer and reweigh the Winter factors.

A divided federal appeals court on Thursday refused to block a Seattle law that requires Uber, Instacart and other delivery-app companies to give workers written rules for when their accounts can be shut off. The Ninth Circuit rejected the companies' claims that the rules force them to speak in violation of the First Amendment and are too vague to follow.

Judge Richard R. Clifton, joined by Judge Susan P. Graber, affirmed U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman's denial of a preliminary injunction. Judge Mark J. Bennett dissented in part. He agreed the law is not vague but would have sent the free-speech claim back to the district court.

The decision holds that the companies are unlikely to win their constitutional claims against Seattle's App-Based Worker Deactivation Rights Ordinance. It also applies the lenient test for compelled business disclosures to a law governing what gig platforms tell their workers.

Seattle enacted the ordinance in 2023 to address what the court called the city's perception of "the instability of the gig economy and the consequent vulnerability of delivery workers." The law bars "unwarranted deactivations" of app-based workers' accounts and covers delivery work, not ridesharing. The companies did not challenge that ban.

They targeted a section requiring each company to "inform" workers "in writing" of its deactivation policy and to make that policy "reasonably related" to the company's "safe and efficient operations." The ordinance lists eight examples of policies that fail that test, including deactivations "based solely on a quantitative metric derived from aggregate customer ratings." The court noted the city's belief that such ratings are "highly likely" to be influenced by bias against workers of certain races and ethnicities.

Uber and its subsidiary Portier, LLC, joined by Instacart, argued that the ordinance compels "pure, content-based speech." They relied on Ninth Circuit decisions applying strict scrutiny, the most demanding level of constitutional review, to state laws requiring social media companies to file reports with the government. Seattle argued that the ordinance regulates conduct, not speech, or at most commercial speech.

The majority sided with Seattle without deciding whether the law regulates speech at all. Assuming it does, Judge Clifton wrote, the speech is commercial. "Whatever speech might be regulated by the Ordinance is directly related to employment, however temporary," he wrote.

The majority distinguished those reports, which addressed "highly controversial issues of public concern," from the internal communications with workers that Seattle's law covers. "It is a modern version of established workplace disclosure laws," Judge Clifton wrote.

The panel then applied Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, a 1985 Supreme Court decision under which the government may compel businesses to disclose "purely factual and uncontroversial information" reasonably related to a substantial governmental interest. The notice requirement passed, the majority held, and "can be satisfied by a single webpage and is therefore not unduly burdensome."

The majority rejected the dissent's view that the policies amount to opinions. Once issued, Judge Clifton wrote, a policy "will truthfully and accurately identify the conduct of app-based workers that could lead to deactivation."

The requirement that policies be reasonably related to safety and efficiency also survived. The majority held that it regulates at most speech tied to conduct Seattle has made unlawful, namely unwarranted deactivations, so it would pass even Central Hudson, the tougher test for restrictions on commercial speech.

On vagueness, the panel held that "reasonable" is a well-established legal standard and that the ordinance's examples give it content. In a vagueness challenge, Judge Clifton wrote, "what matters is not whether a person of ordinary intelligence would agree with the content of or motivations for a law, but rather whether they would understand its dictates."

Judge Bennett wrote that the ordinance does compel speech and that the district court erred in finding it had no First Amendment implications. He agreed that Zauderer applies but said the policies are not purely factual. The law "requires Plaintiffs to formulate and publish their opinions on what behaviors or standards are reasonably related to safety or to efficiency," he wrote. "And they are likely to be controversial opinions."

He called the majority's unlawful-activity reasoning "both circular and incorrect." Because the ordinance defines an unwarranted deactivation by reference to the policy rules themselves, Judge Bennett wrote, "it is not unlawful to deactivate workers for reasons unrelated to safe and efficient operations. But it is unlawful to speak a policy that is unrelated to safe and efficient operations."

Judge Bennett also noted that Seattle's Office of Labor Standards may enforce the policy requirement now but not the deactivation ban until June 1, 2027. Until then, he wrote, the office may "assess fines only for violations of the speech regulation."

He would have remanded for the district court to apply Zauderer itself and reweigh the other preliminary-injunction factors, noting that the companies have since issued deactivation policies in light of the ordinance.

"By affirming the authority of Seattle to enact and enforce the Ordinance, we do not express a view on the merits of the policy," Judge Clifton wrote in closing.

David M. Zionts of Covington & Burling LLP argued for Uber and Portier. Jessica L. Goldman of Summit Law Group PLLC argued for the city. Jason W. Anderson of Carney Badley Spellman PS represented the Washington Food Industry Association as amicus curiae.

The ruling replaces an opinion the panel issued on March 4, 2026, which the majority said "remains substantively the same in this amended opinion." The panel denied as moot a pending petition for rehearing en banc and said new rehearing petitions may be filed. A district-court stay entered on the parties' stipulation remains in place pending final resolution of the appeals. The case is Uber Technologies, Inc. v. City of Seattle, Nos. 25-228 and 25-231.