[chrischen]

Are you sure your analogy is sound? Ms fong had a 100% share in the car, but she already lost 100% value of the car to an entity at fault which is dead. Like a natural disaster, both entities can not reimburse for the fault, however the ride sharing company has willingly assumed the role of protector in the car case. But now the fault for the damage caused by the car while operated by someone else is more analogous to people getting killed by rubble in the factory during the hurricane. The hurricane can't be sued, and the fault doesn't technically lie with the factory owners, so society doesn't have a right to assign the consequences of fault arbitrarily to the owner now does it?

[JumpCrisscross]

No analogy is going to be apt since this is legal grey area. Ms Fong should have recognised that risk going into the situation.

Absent special laws protecting rental car companies from their drivers' actions they too would be liable for me taking my rental and ramming it into a McDonald's before fleeing the country.

[chrischen]

Well I'm sure she knew the risks and realized it's safe because the ridesharing company would probably cover her.

I'm sure the special laws are there to be explicit since they already figured it made no sense to make the rental company at fault in situations like this. But this gives even more reason why Ms. Fong shouldn't legally be at fault since she's just like a rental company.