If an Uber or Lyft Passenger attacks a driver, is the company liable for the injuries?
This question arose in a recent case in California where the plaintiff asserted that the rideshare company was negligent based on its failure to conduct criminal background checks on all passengers. While this post examines California law, it is interesting enough for us to write about even though we are in Georgia.
Background
In February 2020, the plaintiff was working as a Lyft driver when he accepted a ride request through the Lyft app from a passenger. During the ride, and without any warning or provocation, the passenger repeatedly stabbed the driver, causing lacerations to his left hand and both legs. In April 2020, the plaintiff filed a complaint asserting three causes of action against Lyft:
- Failure to provide workers’ compensation insurance;
- Negligence; and
- Failure to provide a safe place of employment.
The trial court granted Lyft’s motion to dismiss the case because the plaintiff couldn’t establish a claim for negligence as a matter of law. Lyft lacked either a statutory or a common law duty to conduct criminal background checks on passengers.
The trial court also determined that state law prohibits Lyft from conducting background checks on passengers. The court concluded that Lyft had rebutted the presumption of negligence, thus defeating the claim that it was liable for failing to provide the plaintiff workers’ compensation insurance. In May 2022, the trial court issued a judgment of dismissal, and the plaintiff appealed.
The Appeal Hinges on Foreseeability
California Court of Appeals Judge Rashida A. Adams wrote that it’s undisputed that California Public Utilities Code § 5445.2 and Business and Professions Code § 7458 require Lyft to conduct background checks on drivers. The laws prohibit ride share companies from employing, contracting with, or retaining drivers with certain convictions. Here, the complaint alleged that the passenger had a “long history of criminal convictions,” including “charges for drugs, theft, and illegal weapons charges, all of which are a matter of public record.”
The judge explained that the plaintiff’s recovery for negligence depended as a threshold matter on the existence of a legal duty of care. In addition, the question of whether a duty exists is a question of law to be resolved by the court.
In general, each person has a duty to act with reasonable care under the circumstances. However, one owes no duty to control the conduct of another, nor to warn those endangered by such conduct. While there’s generally no duty to protect others from the conduct of third parties, the Special Relationship Doctrine is an exception to this general rule. In a case involving harm caused by a third party, a person may have an affirmative duty to protect the victim of another’s harm if that person is in what the law calls a ‘special relationship’ with either the victim or the person who created the harm. A special relationship between the defendant and the victim is one that “gives the victim a right to expect protection from the defendant, Judge Adams wrote.
If the court determines there is a special relationship between the parties, “or some other set of circumstances giving rise to an affirmative duty to protect, the court must then consult the factors described in Rowland v. Christian (1968) to determine whether relevant policy considerations counsel limiting that duty.
Lyft conceded that it was in a special relationship with the plaintiff when the attack occurred. As a result, the Court considered whether the Rowland factors indicate the duty arising out of that special relationship should be limited. To depart from the general principle that all persons owe a duty of care to avoid injuring others involves the balancing of a number of considerations:
- The foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff;
- The degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury;
- The closeness of the connection between the defendant’s conduct and the injury suffered;
- The moral blame attached to the defendant’s conduct;
- The policy of preventing future harm;
- The extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach; and
- The availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.
Judge Adams said that before analyzing these factors, the Court must identify the specific duty the plaintiff asserts Lyft should undertake. The plaintiff alleged that Lyft had a duty to conduct “basic, inexpensive public record background checks on passengers to determine whether they pose a risk of harm to drivers (or to obtain consent from drivers that they may be transporting a known criminal).” On appeal, the plaintiff argued that Lyft is required to “either warn drivers about riders with serious criminal histories … or otherwise exclude such riders from its network.” He further asserted that Lyft should exclude or warn drivers about passengers who have been convicted of any of the crimes that would prevent individuals from driving for a rideshare company pursuant to state law. The plaintiff suggested that Lyft could simply warn drivers that a potential rider did not pass a criminal background screening. According to the plaintiff, once warned, “[t]he driver then has the choice of accepting the ride or not.”
As the California Supreme Court explained in an earlier decision, in evaluating whether a business is under a duty to provide precautionary measures to protect patrons against potential third party criminal conduct, past California cases generally have looked primarily to a number of factors, including (i) the degree of foreseeability that the danger will arise on the business’s premises; and (ii) the relative burden that providing a particular precautionary measure will place upon the business.
If the relative burden of providing a particular precautionary safety or security measure is onerous rather than minimal, absent a showing of a ‘heightened’ or ‘high degree’ of foreseeability of the danger in question, it’s not appropriate for courts to recognize or impose a common law duty to provide the measure.
The Burden of Providing Background Checks
Judge Adams concluded that the proposed measures in particular would be highly burdensome, requiring a heightened degree of foreseeability. A duty to conduct criminal background checks on all rideshare passengers would raise similar concerns about overbreadth, the disproportionate exclusion of certain racial groups, and the masking of discriminatory intent. An obligation to conduct criminal background checks on every potential passenger would additionally raise concerns regarding consumer privacy. As such, the measures the plaintiff proposed would create potential liability for Lyft related to privacy concerns and disparate impact, the judge observed.
In short, construing Lyft’s duty to drivers to include an obligation to conduct a criminal background check on all riders, for the purpose of excluding some subset of them based on their criminal histories, is an extremely burdensome precautionary measure.
Heightened Foreseeability
In determining whether a plaintiff has made a showing of heightened foreseeability, courts have considered whether there were prior similar incidents of violent crime or whether the defendant had actual knowledge of the perpetrator’s violent propensities.
The plaintiff’s complaint alleges only that “it is well known by Lyft that many drivers for Lyft and Uber, as well as taxicab drivers and other similar common carriers, have fallen victim to serious crimes committed by passengers in the years prior to the Incident … .” This allegation does not reflect a heightened foreseeability that passengers will perpetrate violence on drivers in particular. The complaint doesn’t allege that individuals likely to commit unprovoked violent assaults are drawn in particular to rideshare services, or that prior violent incidents involved individuals with any particular type of criminal record, or a criminal record at all. Even considering the facts of this case, the plaintiff didn’t alleged that the passenger had a criminal history that involved assaultive or violent conduct.
The Court found that the plaintiff’s complaint failed to allege facts demonstrating the type of harm he suffered was highly foreseeable, or that the failure to conduct criminal background checks on all passengers was sufficiently likely to result in a violent, unprovoked attack on a driver, such that liability may be imposed.
As a result, the judgment was affirmed. The plaintiff failed to established that Lyft’s legal duty to its drivers extends to conducting criminal background checks on all riders seeking to use the service. Al Shikha v. Lyft, Inc., 102 Cal. App. 5th 14, (Cal. App. May 17, 2024).
Seek Advice from an Experienced Personal Injury Lawyer
Having a knowledgeable rideshare accident lawyer who has experience handling these types of accident cases does matter. Whoever you hire as your rideshare accident lawyer needs to know the law and how to apply it. We’re happy to answer your questions. We offer free consultations to all prospective clients. Contact an Atlanta personal injury attorney at Tobin Injury Law 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by calling 404-JUSTICE (404-587-8423).