[NEWS] Lyft faces lawsuit that alleges kidnapping at gunpoint and rape – Loganspace

Lyftis coping with yet every other lawsuit referring to its handling of alleged sexual assaults at the fingers of drivers on its platform. In a suit filed this present day in the San Francisco Superior Courtroom, Alison Turkos accuses Lyft of 11 counts, including overall negligence, vicarious liability for assault with a deadly weapon, sexual assault, sexual battery and breach of contract.

The lawsuit describes how the plaintiff’s Lyft driver allegedly kidnapped her at gunpoint and took her across converse lines, where the driving force and other males took turns raping her, the complaints states.

“Alison remembers the males cheering and excessive fiving every other as they persisted to rape her,” the lawsuit alleges. “Their attack develop into once so brutal that the following day Alison skilled severe vaginal agonize and bleeding. Her physique develop into once so exhausted from the attack and ensuing trauma that Alison could presumably possibly well no longer even leave her mattress or elevate her palms.”

When the plaintiff reported it to Lyft, the lawsuit alleges Lyft merely apologized for “anguish” and gave her a partial refund for the travel. The plaintiff says she reported the crime to the police, who performed a rape equipment that chanced on proof of semen from as a minimum two males on the clothing she wore that evening.

The Contemporary York Police Division then transferred the case to the FBI, in step with the lawsuit. The lawsuit states the FBI is now investigating the incident as a human trafficking case. Nonetheless, Lyft “has been wholly uncooperative” all thru the NYPD and FBI’s investigation, the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit seeks particular damages, including financial restitution to duvet past and future health facility charges, along with charges referring to to her profession and loss of earning ability.

“By failing to amass cheap steps to confront the difficulty of a couple of rapes and sexual assaults of LYFT passengers by LYFT drivers, LYFT has acted in conscious put out of your mind of the safety of its passengers,” the lawsuit alleges.

This suit comes upright weeks after14 ladies filed suit in opposition to Lyftalleging the corporate has no longer addressed complaints referring to sexual assault. Each suits steered Lyft adopt unique insurance policies, such because the addition to the app of a surveillance digital camera that can story audio and video of all rides.

In the interim,Lyft currently announcedunique security suggestions, including time out check-ins if a travel appears to be to be taking longer than it ought to and in-app 911 calling.

“We’re committed to playing a considerable aim in connecting our communities with transportation, and we realize the tasks that stretch alongside with that,” Lyft co-founder and president John Zimmer wrote in a blog put up. “We’ve acknowledged since the beginning that as portion of our mission, we must the least bit times carefully invest in security. We proceed to welcome accountability and partnership to splendid shield our rider and driver community.”

It’s no accident that Lyft announced these security suggestions in mild of the lawsuit on behalf of these 14 ladies. The corporate had beforehand taken some steps to tackle security, however at a powerful slower tempo than competitor Uber, which has also faced a quantity of sexual assault and abuse complaints. Between 2014-2018,CNN chanced on 103 Uber drivers who had been accused of sexual assault or abuse of passengers.

Over the years, both companiesown taken steps to ramp up their respective security procedures. In April, Uber launched a campus security initiative while Lyft utilized accurate background checks and enhanced its identification verification task for drivers. Uber, however, utilized accurate background checks just a few corpulent year earlier than Lyft, and added an in-app 911 calling feature extra than a year earlier than Lyft.

“We don’t salvage lightly any cases where anyone’s security is compromised, in particular in the rideshare replace, including the allegations of assault in the news final week,”Zimmer acknowledged earlier this month in that identical blog put up. “The actuality is that clear populations raise a disproportionate burden merely making an strive to acquire to work or support home after an evening out — in the U.S., one in six ladies will face some develop of sexual violence in their lives. The onus is on all of us to be taught from any incident, whether or no longer it happens on our platform or no longer, and then work to support end them.”

TechCrunch is searching forward to screech from Lyft relating to this lawsuit. We’ll update this account if we hear support.