Lyft Sexual Assault Lawyers: Filing a Lawsuit
In recent years, many individuals have filed lawsuits against Lyft after experiencing a rideshare sexual assault citing poor vetting and hiring practices, negligence in ensuring rider safety, and failure to respond to incident reports. Understand your legal rights and options and what to look for if you need to hire a Lyft sexual assault lawyer.
Key Takeaways
- Hundreds of individuals have filed sexual abuse lawsuits against Lyft for failing to adequately vet drivers and protect riders from perpetrators including known and repeat offenders.
- The statute of limitations and actions taken immediately following the experience can dictate your ability to pursue a Lyft sexual assault lawsuit.
- If you have experienced what you believe to be rideshare sexual assault, abuse, or harassment, you should speak to an experienced Lyft sexual assault lawyer as soon as possible to understand your rights and options.
How the Best Lyft Sexual Assault Lawyers Help Survivors
Most individuals have never needed to hire an attorney, particularly for personal injury matters like rideshare sexual abuse. Finding a trustworthy Lyft sexual assault attorney and knowing the right questions to ask can be confusing and challenging, especially after going through a traumatic experience.
For rideshare sexual assault cases, we work directly with Melissa Reitberg, an attorney at the Meirowitz and Wasserberg firm, who is an experienced Uber and Lyft sexual assault lawyer that fiercely advocates for all of her clients across her personal injury practice at the firm. She holds a Juris Doctorate from the Elizabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University and is based in New York City.
At Helping Survivors, we aim to help heal, educate, and empower people who have been impacted by sexual abuse, assault, or harassment. Let us connect you with a Lyft sexual assault attorney like Melissa who can help you take the next step in your healing journey.
Here are some important factors to consider when consulting a Lyft sexual assault lawyer about a potential rideshare sexual assault lawsuit:
Kathryn Kosmides
Managing Director | Helping Survivors
- Free Consultations: The law firm should offer a free consultation to thoroughly review the facts and circumstances of your case, and inform you of your rights and options.
- Contingency Basis: The firm should take your case on a contingency basis, meaning you do not have to pay upfront. The firm will take a percentage of the settlements or damages awarded by the courts once the case concludes.
- Transparency: The law firm should be transparent about your legal rights and options, as well as the potential outcomes of each, including reporting to law enforcement and filing a lawsuit against Lyft.
- Trauma-Informed: It’s important to have a lawyer that will fight for you while also understanding and empathizing with your experience. The best rideshare sexual assault lawyers are responsive, communicative, and sensitive to your needs.
Helping Survivors can connect you to a local or national law firm that has experience with Lyft sexual assault cases. Reach out to us using the form below or visit our “Get Legal Help” page for further assistance.
What a Lyft Sexual Assault Lawyer Can Help With
If you have experienced harm at the hands of a rideshare driver, you likely don’t know what the next best step is and how to preserve your legal rights and options should you want to pursue a rideshare sexual assault lawsuit. While many lawyers help survivors in personal injury matters, having an attorney experienced with Lyft sexual assault claims can make the process easier, faster, and increase the potential damages awarded.
Hiring an experienced Lyft sexual assault attorney can help you not only understand your legal rights and options, they can assist in:
- Helping to collect and document evidence of the assault
- Write and submit in-app incident report to Lyft
- Help you in the process of filing a report with law enforcement if you haven’t already
- File a Lyft sexual assault lawsuit on your behalf
- Handle all communications with the rideshare company, their legal representatives, and the courts
- Negotiate with Lyft’s representative regarding a potential rideshare sexual assault settlement on your behalf
- Help ensure your personal information can be kept confidential if you choose to file a sexual assault claim against Lyft
- Represent you publicly in all court appearances regarding the case
We can connect you to a local or national law firm with specialized Lyft sexual assault attorneys that can provide the support you need.
Why Individuals File Lyft Sexual Assault Lawsuits
Any service or product you use has certain legal requirements that they must abide by if you are their customer. As it relates to rideshare apps, they must uphold their duty of care to protect their users from sexual assault and other violent offenses.
Experiencing any form of gender-based violence or harassment can create long-lasting impacts on survivors. This can include depression, anxiety, relationship issues, and work-related issues. You deserve to be able to heal from this, and oftentimes the monetary damages awarded in civil lawsuits enables individuals to get the help they need to heal and move forward with their lives.
Most law firms file Lyft sexual assault lawsuits citing Lyft the following claims:
- Poor Vetting and Hiring Practices
Like other rideshare apps, Lyft requires drivers to undergo initial and annual criminal background checks. It also requires drivers to undergo continuous criminal monitoring.
Unfortunately, that’s not enough since sexual assaults still happen. For one, Lyft’s criminal background checks only look at records from the last seven years and oftentimes can only look at convictions, not arrests. Also, sexual offenders who have yet to be convicted can use Lyft to find victims.
- Negligence in Ensuring Rider Safety
Lyft currently provides in-app emergency assistance, including a 24/7 safety team that riders can contact if they feel unsafe or have concerns.
However, Lyft only implemented these features after sexual assault victims came forward and took legal action. Sexual assault victims have also argued for additional safety features, such as video monitoring of rides in Lyft cars, and on the app.
- Failure to Respond to Incident Reports
Sexual assault survivors have also spoken out against Lyft’s failure to respond to incident reports. According to Caroline Miller, who was raped by a Lyft driver after celebrating her birthday, Lyft’s response to her sexual assault report was to send her a small amount of money.
Miller and 18 other women jointly filed a lawsuit against Lyft. Similarly, 14 plaintiffs in a 2022 lawsuit said that Lyft did nothing after they reported their assaults other than telling them that Lyft was sorry for their experience and that it would suspend the perpetrator’s account.
An attorney for the plaintiffs, Adam Wolf, told NPR, “The thing Lyft is most concerned about protecting is its own profit margins.” Survivors deserve healing and filing a lawsuit is oftentimes their only way to have the money to pay for services and their missed work.
Typically, a Lyft sexual assault attorney files a civil claim to seek damages for:
- Compensation for medical bills
- Compensation for the cost of mental health treatment
- Compensation for lost wages
- Pain and suffering and related non-economic damages.
As of April 2024, numerous new lawsuits against Lyft for sexual abuse have made headlines recently including a sexual assault of teen by Lyft driver in Kansas, a lawsuit against Lyft in a San Francisco federal court from a woman who was impregnated by a driver, and a Lyft driver allegedly raping a USC student near the campus. These ongoing headlines show the continued problem of rideshare sexual assault and the lack of support for survivors provided by the platforms.
Steps to Hiring a Lyft Sexual Assault Lawyer & Filing a Lawsuit
Over the last few years, many survivors of Lyft sexual abuse have filed claims against the company for failing to uphold its duty of care to protect its users from sexual assault and other violent offenses.
The steps to file a lawsuit against Lyft for sexual assault include:
- Document Your Experience – Write down everything you can remember and take screenshots of any evidence related to the ride.
- Speak with an Attorney – It’s advisable to consult an experienced Lyft sexual assault attorney as soon as possible to guide you through the steps and processes involved.
- Review & Sign with Law Firm – Law firms typically take these cases on a contingency basis, meaning they are compensated once there is a settlement or you win the case in court. This arrangement doesn’t require any upfront payment, and most states have standard percentages that law firms can take.
- Law Firm Files Claims Against Lyft – Depending on the state you are in, there may be different steps to file a claim against Lyft. The law firm will handle all of this work so you can focus on your recovery.
- Responding to Court Summons – If any court appearances or filings are required, your attorney will manage these, and you will likely not need to attend.
- Discovery Process – This is the process of gathering evidence and information related to the harm that occurred and what information Lyft does or does not have, such as the driver’s background check results.
- Settlement Negotiations or Trial Proceedings – Once the discovery is complete, both sides will come together to discuss a settlement, or the case will proceed to a hearing.
The statute of limitations determines how long the state has to press criminal charges and how long you have to file a lawsuit against Lyft, so speaking to a professional attorney as soon as possible is important.
You can file a claim even if you were assaulted while traveling outside of your home state.
Your information can typically be kept confidential during this entire process, meaning that the public and those around you do not have to know the details of your experience.
Current Lyft Sexual Assault Lawsuits in the Headlines
Some recent high-profile lawsuits against Lyft allege that the company is directly liable for negligently hiring, retaining, and supervising perpetrators and for fraudulently representing itself as a safe transportation option.
Plaintiffs have also accused Lyft of “vicarious liability for the torts of its agents.”
Seventeen Lawsuits for Sexual Assault Against Lyft
In 2022, Lyft faced 17 new lawsuits from users around the United States for failing to protect drivers and passengers from sexual and physical assault. Of the 17 lawsuits, 14 were filed by victimes of sexual assault.
One of the plaintiffs described how her driver locked the car doors and sexually assaulted her in June 2021. He then told her to keep the assault a secret because he knew where she and her friends lived.
All of these passengers and drivers reported that Lyft did nothing to help them after they reported their assaults other than telling them that Lyft was sorry for their experience and would suspend the account of the passenger or driver who assaulted them.
Nineteen Women Sue Lyft for Failing To Prevent Sexual Assault
At Least 34 Women Sue Lyft for Failing To Prevent Sexual Assault
In August 2019, Alison Turkos was kidnapped by her Lyft driver at gunpoint. He then drove her across state lines and gang-raped her with two other men. Turkos is one of more than 34 women suing Lyft for enabling a sexual assault “epidemic.”
Lyft Sexual Assault Lawyers & Lawsuits FAQs
Since the early 2010s, rideshare apps including Lyft have offered a supposedly safe and convenient way for people to get around. However, using any form of rideshare carries some risk since it requires getting into a stranger’s car. Thousands of people have experienced sexual harassment, abuse, assault, kidnapping, and other violent crimes in rideshares. This unfortunate reality has resulted in survivors of rideshare sexual assault seeking justice and future harm prevention by filing sexual assault lawsuits against Lyft and Uber.
In their first and only US Safety Report, Lyft self-reported showed they received 4,158 reports of sexual assault between 2017 – 2019. They have not published data for 2020 – 2024, and although rides decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic, the overall data from our partners and the media show that the issue continues to be a prevalent problem.
The individuals who perpetrate sexual violence can be reported to the platform and to law enforcement, which will start the criminal justice process. Individuals who experience harm can then decide to file a lawsuit against Lyft for negligence in sexual assault cases.
If you have experienced sexual assault in a Lyft, we hope this page serves as a resource to help you understand your reporting rights and options, including filing a claim against Lyft for the harm that happened to you.
Below you will find FAQs related to hiring a Lyft sexual assault lawyer and filing a sexual assault lawsuit against Lyft if you experienced rideshare sexual assault or abuse.
If you are looking to speak to an experienced attorney or have questions, reach out to Helping Survivors and we’ll get you the help you deserve.
Lyft has only officially published one US Safety Report which covered the years 2017 – 2019. The report showed they received 4,158 reports of sexual assault between 2017 – 2019. They have not published data for 2020 – 2024 but we continue to hear from survivors.
Before 2018, Lyft required sexual assault victims to pursue claims through independent mediation and arbitration. Fortunately, Lyft changed its tune in 2018 after more than a hundred Lyft drivers were arrested for sexual assault. As a result, Lyft sexual assault victims can now settle claims in any way they want, whether through mediation, arbitration, or in open court.
In general, most survivors are able to keep their personal information and the details of the harm that happened to them confidential.
While there is no set amount for a sexual assault lawsuit claim against Lyft, the potential compensation from damages and the time required to handle the claims will vary based on the type of harm you’ve experienced and the specifics of your case.
A skilled attorney, well-versed in sexual assault lawsuits against Lyft and other personal injury claims, can provide an estimate of the damages. This estimation will consider current and future expenses, financial losses, and their knowledge of previous settlements with Lyft and within the broader industry. Although many factors will influence the value of your case and the final settlement or award amount, consulting with an attorney for a free assessment of your situation is always beneficial.
Finding an attorney who specializes in helping rideshare sexual assault survivors seek justice is critically important to ensure you have the expertise necessary. We can put you in touch with a leading law firm in this area to help you wherever you are located in the United States.
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