About 200,000 former and current Lyft drivers in California and their lawyers are to divvy up a combined $27 million under the settlement of a class action. The lawsuit involved the drivers' classification as hired contractors and not employees. Attorneys are to get about $3.6 million of the pot.

However, even under the deal that was approved Thursday by a San Francisco federal judge, drivers will continue to work as independent contractors. That means they must pay for their own gas and other expenses. They are still not covered under minimum-wage laws and are not entitled to unemployment insurance and other benefits.

Both Uber, which is involved in a similar class action lawsuit, and Lyft classify drivers as contractors because the companies' profits would be hit hard if they reclassified their drivers as employees.

Under the Lyft settlement, however, drivers may now challenge firings before an arbitrator.

"The agreement is not perfect. And the status of Lyft drivers under California law remains uncertain going forward," US District Judge Vince Chhabria wrote.

The accord covers Lyft drivers working in California between May 2012 and July 2016.

In June, Chhabria rejected a $12.5 million deal, saying it "grossly underestimated" the value to reimburse drivers' expenses. Lawyers for both sides came back with a deal more than double in size.

Drivers who worked more than 30 hours per week are expected to receive several thousand dollars each, whereas drivers who worked just a handful of hours per week are to receive about $130 each. Nationwide, Lyft has more than 700,000 drivers, and the company might deploy thousands of autonomous Chevrolet Bolts by 2018.

Meanwhile, Uber is involved in a similar class-action lawsuit in California and Massachusetts. A federal judge overseeing the litigation said last year that a proposed $100 million settlement was inadequate for Uber drivers.

More than 1.5 million drivers work under the Uber banner globally.