Antitrust Law Daily Wrap Up, RICO—E.D. Pa.: Court dismisses lawyer and doctor counterclaims in Uber and FedEx ‘lawsuit abuse’ suit, (Aug 28, 2026)

By Justin Marcus Smith, J.D.

The court said it did not find, and the lawyers did not identify, controlling authority recognizing the sham litigation exception to the Noerr-Pennington doctrine as an independent cause of action for damages without an underlying antitrust claim.

Lawyers who filed counterclaims against Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber) and FedEx (collectively, the fleet operators) did not plead sufficient facts for their sham litigation theory inasmuch as the court had already decided the fleet operators sufficiently pleaded their racketeering claims, held the federal district court in Philadelphia. The lawyers’ sham litigation counterclaim did not pertain without an underlying antitrust claim, and the lawyers also did not plead facts permitting the court to find that Uber’s opening settlement demand of attorney license surrender was an abuse of process. The dismissals of those two claims were without prejudice. However, the court dismissed the lawyers’ civil extortion claim with prejudice because Pennsylvania choice-of-law pertained to the case, and Pennsylvania, unlike California, did not recognize the civil extortion claim. The doctor defendants, meanwhile, did not plead facts to permit extension of defamation law to cover general press coverage. The court dismissed the doctors’ false light claim, likewise without prejudice, for the same reasons (Uber Technologies, Inc. v. Simon & Simon P.C., No. 2:25-cv-05365-MAK (E.D. Pa. Aug. 27, 2026)).

Background. The fleet operators brought a RICO lawsuit against a Pennsylvania personal injury law practice, its principal attorney (collectively, the lawyers), and several healthcare professionals and healthcare practice entities (collectively, the doctors). The fleet operators alleged a “scheme to manufacture evidence through false medical records and unnecessary treatment.” The operators said the alleged scheme not only deceived the courts, it also induced Uber's counsel to settle cases at inflated amounts, including but not limited to falsely valuing claims to exceed the $50,000 limit under the Pennsylvania state courts' compulsory arbitration program.

In May 2026, the federal district court in Philadelphia found the fleet operators had sufficiently pleaded their RICO case. The court also held the Noerr-Pennington and Rooker-Feldman doctrines did not pertain. The court accordingly denied the defendants’ dismissal motion and ordered them to file an answer and proceed to discovery. The court also ordered settlement discussions.

The lawyers and one set of doctors responded by, among other things, filing counterclaims against Uber and FedEx. The lawyers sued Uber for civil extortion and abuse of process arising from Uber’s opening settlement demand of professional license surrender. The lawyers also requested attorney fees because they said they believed the fleet operators’ suit was improper, notwithstanding the court’s decision to deny dismissal and availability of remedies for bad faith litigation. One set of doctors sued Uber for defamation and false light invasion of their privacy based on press reports of the fleet operators’ lawsuit. The fleet operators moved to dismiss the claims against them.

Sham litigation. The court dismissed the lawyers’ sham litigation counterclaim against Uber and FedEx without prejudice. The court construed that the lawyers did not invoke the sham exception to defeat Noerr-Pennington immunity. They instead pleaded sham litigation as an affirmative counterclaim seeking damages and declaratory relief.

The court elaborated that it did not find, and the lawyers did not identify, controlling authority recognizing the sham litigation exception itself as an independent cause of action for damages. According to the court, the lawyers confirmed at oral argument that they “did not directly plead antitrust violations by Uber or FedEx.” They instead argued their existing allegations sufficiently stated an antitrust theory under Simon Property Group, Inc. v. Palombaro, 682 F. Supp. 2d 508 (W.D. Pa. 2010), and TruePosition v. Allen Telecom, Inc., No. 01-823, 2003 WL 151227, at *3–4 (D. Del. Jan. 21, 2003), because they alleged Uber and FedEx joined together to pursue this action to deter personal injury firms from bringing claims against them.

The lawyers asked for leave to replead an underlying antitrust violation if necessary, but the court declined to infer an unpleaded antitrust cause of action from the “sham litigation” label and dismissed the lawyers’ sham litigation claim accordingly. The court did not explicitly address leave to amend.

Abuse of process. The court also dismissed the lawyers’ abuse of process claim based on Uber’s opening settlement demand for license surrender. Uber moved to dismiss because the settlement demand did not constitute enforceable “legal process” under Pennsylvania law. It also argued settlement demands need not be limited to judicially-awardable relief. The lawyers responded that Uber abused the court orders directing settlement activity as legal process to make the challenged demand for relief which, they contended, Uber could not have obtained through its racketeering claims. The lawyers did not invoke California law.

The court reasoned that the lawyers did not rely on the settlement demand to establish the invalidity or amount of Uber’s racketeering claims. The license surrender demand was to be evidence of the alleged abuse itself. The court said it did not need to decide whether the court’s orders directing settlement activity were legal process because the lawyers did not allege facts permitting an inference that Uber used a process primarily for an improvident purpose. The court found Uber used the instant settlement proceedings to propose terms for resolving this action. Inclusion of an objectionable settlement term in an opening demand did not show Uber’s primary purpose was anything other than settling the action. The court analyzed and contrasted applicable cases and dismissed the lawyers’ abuse of process counterclaim without prejudice.

Civil extortion. The court applied Pennsylvania choice-of-law rules and found, as a matter of law, that the lawyers did not have a cause of action for civil extortion arising from Uber’s settlement demand that one of the attorneys surrender his law license. Uber moved to dismiss on the contention that Pennsylvania law does not recognize a civil cause of action for extortion. The lawyers countered that California law would apply because Uber is based in California, it is engaged in broader tort-reform activities there, and that the court ought to infer it made its decision to issue the settlement demand from its California headquarters.

The court recognized conflict between Pennsylvania and California law on the civil extortion claim. California recognizes the claim. Pennsylvania does not. The court decided Pennsylvania had the greater interest because the contacts centered on the parties’ relationship and alleged coercive conduct in Pennsylvania. The court dismissed the lawyers’ civil extortion counterclaim, with prejudice, because Pennsylvania law governed and does not recognize the claim.

Defamation. The defendant medical practice and doctors (collectively, the doctors) did not allege facts permitting a plausible inference that Uber published an out-of-court defamatory communication reasonably understood as referring to them. Uber alleged its judicial pleadings were absolutely privileged and that the media’s description of those pleadings were not attributable to Uber. Uber said its communications director’s alleged statements were generalized non-actionable opinions not of and concerning the doctors, and the doctors did not plead damages.

The doctors countered that Uber did more than steer reporters to judicially privileged pleadings. They argued the Uber communications director conducted a coordinated media campaign outside the judicial process, vouched for the truth of Uber’s racketeering allegations, and repeatedly invoked “fraud” accusations out-of-court. The doctors further argued the statements satisfied the “of and concerning” requirement under the small group doctrine or by implication, constituted factual accusations of professional fraud rather than protected opinion, and amounted to defamation per se obviating the requirement to plead special damages. The doctors also separately argued their false light claim survived because Uber’s broader media campaign allegedly placed them before the public in a misleading and highly offensive context, even if the court were to decide that individual statements “literally accurate.”

The court disagreed with the doctors. Under Pennsylvania law, the disputed Uber communications must apply to them, and Uber must have published them. The court said the Court of Appeals instructed to look at the context and ask whether the defamatory material was capable of being reasonably understood as intended to refer to the plaintiff, in this case, the doctor defendant-counterclaimants. An unnamed plaintiff may recover if ascertainable by description or by circumstances tending to identify. Pennsylvania law also requires publication.

The court distinguished between the Uber communications and descriptions supplied by reporters recounting allegations in Uber’s judicial pleadings. The court found that no reasonable recipient of three of the disputed communications could understand them as referring to a defendant medical practice or its co-defendant doctors.

Four earlier publications required closer review because each concerned Uber’s racketeering claims before the court. In sum, the Uber communications director did not identify the medical practice or its doctors before making broader comments about “lawsuit abuse.” The reporter supplied the identifying material in one of these four articles. The other three did not identify medical practice or its doctors. The surrounding circumstances therefore did not plausibly transform the Uber communications director’s generalized statements into communications reasonably understood as referring to the medical practice or its doctors.

The medical practice’s broader allegation of an Uber-orchestrated media campaign did not bridge the gap. There was no pleading that Uber “supplied, directed, or participated in crafting the particular reporter-authored descriptions at issue.” The generalized media-campaign allegations did not permit the court to attribute the reporters’ identifying language to Uber.

The court found the instant facts distinguishable from case law on-point. The Uber communications director’s generalized references to lawsuit abuse did not uniquely point to the medical practice or its doctors among the several lawyers, medical providers, and other persons “implicated in Uber’s racketeering litigation.”

Next, the medical practice argued the challenged statements satisfied the “of and concerning” requirement under Pennsylvania’s small-group doctrine, but the court maintained there were no facts supporting this. The court continued there were “no facts” allowing a plausible inference that the Uber communications director aimed his challenged statements toward the eight defendants in this action, the medical-provider defendants, or another comparatively small class or group.

As for defamation by implication, the court again said there were no supporting facts. The alleged connection depended on combining generalized comments with Uber judicial allegations and reporters’ descriptions of those allegations. The court declined to find an actionable implication through combination. The court granted Uber’s motion to dismiss the doctors’ defamation counterclaim and a separate counterclaim for false light invasion of privacy, without prejudice.

False light. The court dismissed the doctors’ false light invasion of privacy claims without prejudice for the same reasons as the defamation claims. Pennsylvania courts apply the same analysis to defamation and false light claims when the two causes of action, as here, are based on the same set of underlying facts.

The Case is No. 2:25-cv-05365-MAK.

Judge: Kearney, M.

Attorneys: David B. Massey (Ashurst Perkins Coie U.S. LLP) for Uber Technologies, Inc. Daniel E. Rhynhart (Blank Rome LLP) for Simon & Simon PC.

Companies: Uber Technologies, Inc.; Simon & Simon PC

Cases: RICO PennsylvaniaNews