Lyft sued by drivers, passengers claiming firm failing to guard customers from assault – TechCrunch

Lyft is going through a recent batch of lawsuits from drivers and passengers who say they had been sexually and bodily assaulted throughout rides and accused the ride-hailing firm of failing to guard its customers.

Seventeen lawsuits had been filed in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin, in keeping with Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Clever, the legislation agency representing most of the victims. These are separate lawsuits and never a class-action. The lawsuits are requesting a jury trial and don’t specify a selected monetary award besides that they’re in search of compensatory damages, together with all bills and wages owed, damages for future lack of earnings, affordable attorneys’ charges, prices, and bills and punitive damages.

The lawsuits, 13 of which had been from drivers and passengers who had been sexually assaulted, allege that Lyft didn’t have correct security measures to stop such assaults and did not adequately reply as soon as the assaults had been reported.

Tracey Cowan, accomplice at Peiffer Wolf, mentioned throughout a press convention that they need “Lyft to take the steps it is aware of it must take to make everybody secure.” These steps, Cowan mentioned, contains complete background screening on its drivers, making certain info that candidates present in addition to background checks are correct via biometric fingerprint monitoring and offering dashcams to drivers.

“The very best consequence can be for Lyft to really make these adjustments that individuals — each passengers and drivers alike — have been asking for for years and we hope that’s what Lyft does,” Cowan mentioned.

Lyft responded by emphasizing its dedication to security and disputed among the claims that had been made throughout a digital press convention held Wednesday that includes a number of drivers and passengers who’ve filed lawsuits.

“We’re dedicated to serving to preserve drivers and riders secure. Whereas security incidents on our platform are extremely uncommon, we notice that even one is just too many,” a spokesperson mentioned in an emailed assertion. “Our objective is to make each Lyft journey as secure as attainable, and we are going to proceed to take motion and put money into know-how, insurance policies and partnerships to take action.”

Lyft mentioned that each driver goes via “rigorous screening,” together with a background test. As soon as authorised, there’s “steady prison monitoring.” Any driver who doesn’t move the preliminary, annual and steady screenings is barred from the platform, the corporate mentioned.  Each driver is required to take a group security schooling course created in partnership with anti-sexual violence group RAINN, in keeping with Lyft.

The corporate additionally disputed plaintiffs’ attorneys assertion that it doesn’t cooperate with legislation enforcement. A number of the victims who spoke throughout the Wednesday press convention detailed their struggles to get Lyft to reply or share info with police.

Lyft advised TechCrunch that it requires a subpoena or different legitimate authorized course of earlier than disclosing private info to legislation enforcement. The corporate mentioned it’s not commonplace course of to proactively report security incidents to legislation enforcement as a result of the choice to report and when to take action is left as much as the person.

Lyft’s most up-to-date community safety report, which was launched in October 2021, discovered greater than 4,000 incidents of sexual assault occurred to customers of the ride-hailing platform between 2017 and the top of 2019. Whereas the variety of cases grew, Lyft cited that the speed decreased as a result of the variety of rides grew.

In October 2018, Lyft ended its pressured arbitration coverage for particular person claims of sexual assault or harassment by drivers, riders or staff. Nevertheless, the arbitration requirement remains to be in locations for bodily assault complaints.