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The ruling, made June 3, came to light after Uber filed an appeal Tuesday evening. The ruling ordered the company to reimburse Barbara Ann Berwick, a former Uber driver, $4,152.20 in expenses and other costs for the period when Ms. Berwick worked as a driver.

Uber has long positioned itself as a “logistics company,” an app that drivers and passengers use merely to facilitate private transactions, and not a transportation fleet with tens of thousands of employee drivers. The company argued it did not exert any control over the hours its drivers worked and did not require drivers to complete a minimum number of trips, according to the court filing.

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”Defendants hold themselves out as nothing more than a neutral technological platform, designed simply to enable drivers and passengers to transact the business of transportation,” the ruling states. “The reality, however, is that defendants are involved in every aspect of the operation.”

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Classifying Uber’s drivers as employees may turn out to be an even bigger roadblock to the company’s business than regulatory changes because it could change Uber’s cost structure, requiring it to offer health insurance and other benefits, as well as paying salaries. On-demand companies have been premised on the idea that people who find piecemeal work through these online marketplaces are freelancers, not employees entitled to costly benefits.

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