Orlando, Florida CNN –
A Florida woman sued Lyft earlier this month, claiming that she was raped by her Lyft driver in 2019 and that the assault led to the birth of her third child. The lawsuit is the latest in a series of sexual assault allegations involving the company.
Lyft has denied the allegations in the lawsuit, telling CNN in a statement that the alleged assault occurred during an “off-app” ride hours after an official Lyft ride with the same driver. The company also said it did not become aware of the alleged incident until years later.
Plaintiff Tabatha Means stated that what she was hoping for after a night out on a quick ride back to her location quickly turned unpleasant when the driver asked her to sit in the front seat and then began complimenting her and touching her inappropriately, according to the statement. The lawsuit was filed Jan. 10 in California Northern District Court.
When they arrived at their destination, the driver allegedly insisted on helping her get in, “allegedly because of her drunkenness” and despite her protests. Once inside, he repeatedly attacked her, the complaint states.
04:19 – Source: CNN
Lyft driver who says driver raped and impregnated her tells CNN her story
Means' lawsuit is just the latest lawsuit against a ride-sharing company over alleged sexual assault or misconduct. Lyft, like its competitor Uber, has had to deal with dozens of lawsuits over the issue. While much of the civil litigation against the company is still ongoing, Lyft has denied the allegations made against the company. Separately, at least a handful of Lyft drivers accused of sexual assault have been convicted in criminal cases.
The lawsuit also comes as some states have sought to impose stricter safety restrictions on ride-sharing companies as well as better protections for the companies' drivers. Illinois lawmakers last year proposed a bill that would hold Uber and Lyft to a higher safety standard, which the companies rejected.
Lyft has repeatedly said its service is secure and noted that such attacks are extremely rare. Lyft also pointed to increased safety measures the company has implemented in recent years, such as the ability to “share” a ride so a friend can track the progress of the emergency alert feature in collaboration with security company ADT.
The company also says it has a “24/7” security team and an automatic security check-in feature, where the app sends a notification asking if the driver and driver are OK, if a trip deviates from the route or stops, takes an unusually long time or is canceled after pickup.
“Safety is fundamental to Lyft and the behavior described has no place in our society,” Lyft said in a statement in response to Means’ lawsuit. Lyft has not yet officially responded to the lawsuit in court.
“The alleged 2019 incident did not occur on the Lyft platform while using the Lyft app, but rather involved a separate trip arranged between the individuals involved. Lyft has worked to develop policies and features that protect both drivers and passengers, and we are always working to make Lyft an even safer platform,” the company said.
Lyft also found that more than 99% of rides on the platform occur without a safety report.
Means and her attorney dispute Lyft's assessment that the attack occurred outside of an app-initiated ride.
Means claims she became pregnant as a result of the alleged assault and, after a difficult pregnancy, gave birth to her son at just 33 weeks pregnant, the lawsuit says. Genetic testing later confirmed with “99.9999999998%” certainty that the Lyft driver was the child’s father, the complaint says.
“Every day is a fight,” Means said in an interview with CNN on Friday. “I can't imagine a day of my life without this little boy who was a surprise and wasn't expected, but he is everything to me… But every day is still hard.”
Means said she is now suffering from mental health and financial problems as a result of the alleged rape and subsequent pregnancy, the complaint states.
Means and Lyft have different versions of the events they say took place that night in April 2019.
Lyft said an internal investigation revealed that the driver gave Means a ride on the platform to her original destination earlier in the night and that a separate ride was later arranged with the same driver outside the platform to bring Means back from the bar There was an alleged assault.
The company claims that hours passed between that original Lyft ride and the alleged assault. Lyft declined to elaborate on the process behind its investigation to CNN, citing pending litigation.
Lyft has also said that Means' accused rapist has not driven for the platform in several years, but declined to provide further details about exactly when and why he stopped.
The driver was not named in the lawsuit or by the company. It is not clear whether the driver has previously had any legal action taken against him or complaints about the app.
But Means said she only saw that driver once that night — on a Lyft ride from a bar back to where she was staying. According to Means, the ride was ordered by her ex-husband, with whom she had been traveling that evening while their children were at home with a nanny, and who left the ride after ordering her ride.
As she was leaving the bar, “a car arrived with the Lyft lights on and visible. “The Lyft driver rolled down the passenger side window and the plaintiff confirmed that the Lyft driver was there for her,” the lawsuit states.
Means told CNN: “I want to tell everyone… that I didn't want to do this. “I had never met this man in my life.”
John General/Deborah Brunswick/CNN
According to her complaint, Tabatha Means says she is now facing serious mental and financial difficulties as a result of the alleged assault.
A Lyft receipt from the ride with the accused rapist provided by Means' attorney shows an 11-minute ride just after midnight from a residential area to a street full of restaurants and bars. The attorney said the receipt does not reflect the entire ride and that she believes the driver inappropriately “terminated” the ride via the app shortly after Means got into the car at the bar, which Means would not have known at the time , because she didn't know. She didn't order the trip herself.
“This incident clearly involved a trip booked through the Lyft app, and Lyft's attempt to evade liability is a perfect example of the malicious handling of this crisis,” said Rachel Abrams, a partner at the law firm Peiffer Wolf, Means makes a statement. “There is no doubt that Tabatha’s Lyft driver repeatedly raped her, resulting in her pregnancy and the birth of her son.”
Abrams said in a news conference last week announcing the lawsuit that “the facts of the case will emerge through litigation and through disclosure.”
Lyft has also noted that Means did not report the alleged attack to police or the company at the time.
Means told CNN she feared at the time that she wouldn't be believed. (In the U.S., two out of three rapes are not reported to police, often because victims fear retaliation or will not be believed, according to the anti-sexual assault organization RAINN.)
“All these things are in my head, I have all these reasons why no one will believe me… I was drunk,” Means said, adding that she also had to go home to her children the next morning. “It makes sense now, I should have gone to the hospital and maybe gotten a rape kit.”
It wasn't until she was nearing her son's first birthday that Means said she realized, “Something terrible has happened to me…I have to say something.”
A Google search for “Lyft attack” eventually led them to Abrams, whose law firm has represented numerous women who have accused the company of failing to protect them from attacks during rides. According to Abrams, Means attempted to resolve her case with Lyft through mediation before filing the lawsuit.
Means has not filed any criminal or other charges against the driver. Abrams noted that given the time that has passed since the alleged assault, it may be more difficult to succeed in a criminal case than in a civil case against the company. After genetic testing revealed that the driver was the father of her child, Means declined to file for child support because she did not want any further contact with him.
Following a May 2018 CNN investigation into sexual assault and abuse incidents by rideshare drivers, Lyft and Uber both committed to publishing safety transparency reports detailing internal data on the most serious incidents on their platforms.
The two companies also announced at the time that they would no longer force customers with allegations of sexual assault into arbitration.
In 2021, Lyft and Uber announced that they would share between the two companies the names of drivers and delivery workers who had been banned from their platforms due to serious safety incidents, including sexual assault.
Months later, Lyft released its transparency report and revealed that it had received a total of 4,158 reports of sexual assault on its platform in 2017, 2018 and 2019. which accounted for about one in five million trips.
In 2022, Lyft agreed to a $25 million settlement with shareholders over allegations that the company failed to adequately disclose risks to its reputation and business related to safety issues, including reports of driver-on-passenger assaults.
In addition to seeking unspecified monetary damages in his lawsuit, Means is also pushing Lyft to further strengthen its safety measures, including by improving its background checks and driver hiring processes.
Lyft says all applicants seeking to become new drivers will be subject to a driving accident investigation and criminal background checks conducted by third-party company Checkr. These include Social Security number searches, a nationwide criminal investigation, searches of federal and district court records, etc., and a search of the U.S. Department of Justice Sex Offender Registry.
The company said it also conducts annual criminal background checks on all drivers and conducts ongoing monitoring of driving records and offenses. Lyft's ongoing criminal record monitoring began in April 2019, the month of Means' alleged rape.
In December 2019, Lyft also began requiring drivers to complete a community safety training program developed by RAINN.
The app also launched “Women+ Connect” last year, a feature that allows women and non-binary riders to connect to attract more women and non-binary riders.
But Means' lawsuit encourages Lyft to go further, including by conducting screening interviews “either in person or through online platforms such as Skype or Zoom” and “biometric fingerprinting” as part of its hiring process.
“By failing to take appropriate steps to address the issue of multiple rapes and sexual assaults of Lyft passengers by Lyft drivers, Lyft has acted with conscious disregard for the safety of its passengers, including Plaintiff. [and] breached his duty of care,” the complaint states.
Means said she also wants other users of the ride-sharing app to be aware of the potential safety issues if someone else orders a ride for them, including the fact that they can't easily access the app's emergency alert feature.
“Can you see it [the Lyft driver’s] Lights on, and they say your name, and you get in the car, and [you think] You’re going to be OK, and I trusted that,” Means said during last week’s press conference. “And I'm very upset with myself for not opening my mouth sooner.”