Do rideshare companies owe a duty of care to their drivers?
An Uber driver is murdered in a failed carjacking attempt. A Lyft driver is violently attacked and stabbed by his passenger. In the Lyft driver’s case, the California court rules that Lyft did not owe a duty to the stabbed driver. A federal court applying Washington State law comes to the opposite conclusion in the murdered Uber driver’s case.
How do we explain this discrepancy?
Al Shikha v. Lyft
Abdu Al Shikha was a Lyft driver who picked up Ricky Alvarez in February 2020. Shortly after the ride began, Alvarez attacked Al Shikha, stabbing him in the hand and legs. Al Shikha argued that Lyft owed him the duty to prevent passenger attacks. A basic background screening would have discovered Alvarez’s criminal record, and Al Shikha could have then decided to accept or decline the ride.
The Court concluded that the rare attack Al Shikha suffered was not foreseeable enough to justify a sweeping and expensive criminal background check system on all Lyft passengers in California. One out of three Californians—7 million people—have either been arrested or convicted of a crime. Background checks on all passengers could potentially exclude a large swath of the population from the vital services Lyft and Uber provide. We discussed the Al Shikha case in more detail here.
Drammeh v. Uber Technologies
Cherno Ceesay was an Uber driver murdered by his passengers in Issaquah, Washington in 2020. His estate sued, arguing that Uber had a special relationship with Ceesay and had a duty to protect him. The District Court dismissed the case, holding that Uber does not have a special relationship with its drivers.
The Ninth Circuit reversed. IIt held that under Washington State law, courts recognize a special relationship between rideshare companies and their drivers. Cherno Ceesay entrusted and was dependent upon Uber for his safety, which is a hallmark of the special relationship doctrine. The dissent argued that rideshare drivers could easily choose not to accept rides and avoid picking up dangerous passengers. The majority emphasized that for many Uber drivers working to earn a living, randomly rejecting rides is not an option if they want to make money. The dissent in Drammeh admonished the majority, stating that the court “fashioned a new expansive tort liability with broad-ranging consequences for rideshare companies in particular and the gig economy in general.” This reasoning mirrors some of the same policy arguments the Court of Appeal made in Al Shikha.
Conclusion
Al Shikha and Drammeh are two cases with similar facts and opposite conclusions. In Al Shikha, the California Court of Appeal ruled that rideshare companies do not owe a duty to their drivers to prevent unforeseeable attacks. The Court in Drammeh ruled that Uber does owe a duty to its drivers based on Washington State law.
As more violent crimes are committed against rideshare drivers, we will continue to see courts in different jurisdictions come to different conclusions on what duties rideshare companies owe their drivers.
