A Federal Judge Allows A Woman Allegedly Raped by an Impostor Uber Driver to Proceed in Her Lawsuit Against the Rideshare Giant

“Uber driver accused of raping female passenger,” a headline from earlier this year declares. Regrettably, headlines like that — and the tragic injuries that go with them — are more common than they should be. When you are injured by an Uber driver, either by the driver’s intentional misdeeds or the driver’s negligent errors, that driver’s wrongful misconduct may entitle you to obtain vital compensation. With the right legal filings, evidence and arguments, you may be able to get that compensation, not just from the driver, but also from Uber itself. Doing that, though, requires the right proof and carefully crafted arguments, so be sure you have an experienced Chicago injury attorney helping you with your case.

A recent federal case in California, which was reported by Bloomberg, represents another example of the dangers Uber passengers, especially female passengers, may face. In 2018, “Jane Doe” was a woman in the San Francisco area who had a problem with a seemingly simple solution. She needed a ride home from a mall and her cell phone had very low battery. She called her boyfriend and asked him to hail an Uber for her. She waited a while until a car with a windshield decal bearing the Uber logo approached. Once the woman sat down, the driver engaged the car’s childproof locks, trapping the woman inside, according to the complaint. He then allegedly took her to a remote location and raped her. The man who picked up this Jane Doe was not an Uber driver, but had the decal because he had been an Uber driver in the past.

The passenger sued Uber Technologies, Inc., Rasier, LLC and Rasier CA, LLC for the harm she suffered on that terrible night. The passenger alleged multiple different claims, meaning she presented multiple different legal bases upon which a court could rule in her favor and award her damages. Asserting multiple claims — specifically, asserting as many non-frivolous ones as you can present — is often a very beneficial strategy in an injury case. Even if you assert four or five (or more) claims and succeed on only one, that one may provide the avenue through which you recover significant damages.

Uber’s failure to demand return of its decal potentially was negligence

This passenger’s case may be one of those situations. While Uber and its affiliated companies were successful at pruning some claims during the pretrial process, the passenger scored an important victory when the judge concluded that she could continue forward with her negligence claim. The judge in the case ruled that the passenger could proceed with her assertions that Uber should have made the driver remove and return the decal when Uber terminated the driver following its learning of his past problematic conduct. When Uber failed to do those things, it gave the passenger a valid argument that it was negligent and that this negligent omission played an integral part in the eventual alleged attack. That, according to the court, was a viable claim for negligence.

Whether you were an Uber or Lyft passenger attacked by a driver, a rideshare driver attacked by a passenger or a someone injured in an accident caused by an Uber or Lyft driver, you may be entitled to compensation if the rideshare service knew or should have known about the dangers that person posed and did not take the proper actions. Talk to the knowledgeable Chicago injury attorneys at Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca to get the help you need. Our attorneys have been helping injured people for many years in using the legal system to achieve success. To set up a free case evaluation, contact us at 312-724-5846 or through our website.