Rideshare Sexual Assault Lawsuits

Rideshare companies have not been honest about drivers who prey on passengers.

For years, Uber and Lyft have sought to downplay the prevalence of sexual assault on their platforms. Despite receiving hundreds of complaints from dozens of countries, these multibillion-dollar businesses have largely looked the other way, sometimes even working to suppress safety data that could impact their profit margins.

The castle walls are now starting to crumble. Survivors of sexual assault from across the country have started to join forces in mass torts against the rideshare industry, providing unprecedented leverage over companies that will often do anything in their power to avoid negotiating, let alone settling, a lawsuit.

Here is what you need to know about:

Mass Torts

A mass tort is a legal action made up of multiple lawsuits against the same defendant, all making substantially similar allegations of negligence or misconduct. Mass torts are similar to class-action lawsuits, in that each plaintiff’s claim even those from different states, is consolidated and heard by a single court. However, unlike a class action, mass tort plaintiffs continue to litigate their own claims on their own terms, letting them choose when to settle and under what terms.

The Case Against Uber

Mass tort claims against Uber and Lyft are pending in courts across the country.

Although every lawsuit in every district is different, most center on a key series of legal theories. These include, but are not limited to, the following arguments:

1. Uber was broadly negligent in its hiring, training, and supervision of contracted drivers;
2. Uber and other rideshare companies failed to use the safety tools at their disposal, including predictive machine learning-based algorithms, to take action against repeat offenders;
3. Corporate leadership actively sought to conceal statistics and other information relating to the prevalence of sexual assault on rideshare services; and
4. The rideshare industry engaged in a long-term campaign of deceptive advertising by falsely claiming that platforms like Uber and Lyft are safe to use and free from the reasonably foreseeable risk posed by predatory drivers.

In the past, Uber has withstood standalone lawsuits by claiming that, because its drivers are contractors rather than employees, the company itself cannot be held liable for individual acts of misconduct. Mass torts are challenging this argument by asserting that Uber’s own policies, from the way it chose to design its platform to its broad failure to investigate repeat offenders, created an unacceptable risk that put thousands of passengers in dangerous situations.

Your Potential Compensation In a Rideshare Sexual Assault Lawsuit

Your damages are compensation for the loss, hardship, pain, and suffering you have sustained as the direct result of a sexual assault. Damages vary from one case to the next but frequently include financial relief for harms such as:

1. Hospital bills and other medical expenses;
2. The costs of physical rehabilitation and mental health counseling;
3. Lost income from work, including paid time off toward your recovery;
4. Physical pain and suffering;
5. Emotional pain and suffering;
6. Loss of enjoyment;
7. Loss of companionship, in the event that an assault affected your existing relationships; and
8. Disfigurement for scarring-type injuries.

New York does not cap damages in most personal injury claims, but you cannot afford to wait too long to take action. If you wait, key evidence could go missing, or the statute of limitations might lapse; if this happens, your case could be dismissed on a technicality.

Do not take chances with your rights: call Jed Dietrich, Esq., today at 716-839-3939 to speak to a rideshare sexual assault lawyer and schedule your 100% free, no-obligation consultation as soon as possible.