MA Woman Among Five Suing Uber, Claiming They Were Attacked By Drivers

BOSTON — The popular ride-booking app Uber has been sued by five women who say they were kidnapped, sexually assaulted, or otherwise attacked by Uber drivers across the country.

The complaint, filed Wednesday in San Francisco County Superior Court, comes after Uber released its second U.S. Safety Report, on July 1, which said 998 sexual assaults were reported in 2020, including 141 rapes.

Uber said it received more than 3,800 reports of the five most severe categories of sexual assault in 2019 and 2020, ranging from "non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual body part" to "non-consensual sexual penetration," or rape, the law firm Slater Slater Schulman LLP, which is representing the women, said in a news release.

Slater Slater Schulman LLP has approximately 550 clients with claims against Uber, with at least 150 more being actively investigated.

The lawsuit said that Uber knew as early as 2014 that its drivers had been accused of sexually assaulting and raping female passengers. In the eight years since the lawsuit said the drivers have continued to attack passengers.

A spokeswoman for Uber told Patch the company can't comment on pending litigation.

The company said it takes reports of this nature seriously and has worked closely with advocates in this space for years to develop a survivor-centric approach to handle such reports. In 2020, Uber said it would expand sexual misconduct and assault education to all American drivers and partnered with the nation's largest sexual violence organization to design the program.

Additionally, all potential Uber drivers must complete a background check process, which checks motor vehicle records and criminal offenses at the local, state, and federal levels. Drivers are screened every year and the company has a continuous background check process to monitor for new offenses.

The attorneys for the women pointed to two cases in California, as well as one in Pittsburgh, one in Boston, and another in which the location wasn't identified.

In October 2021, an Uber driver was accused of trying to rape a woman passenger in Boston. In November, the woman filed a lawsuit in Suffolk County Superior Court against Uber Technologies that says driver Michael Squadrito raped her while she was intoxicated and in his car.

Below are the four other instances in which drivers were accused of attacking female passengers:

• In August 2021, an Uber driver was accused of convincing a woman passenger to sit in the front seat of his vehicle, then forcefully kissing and sexually assaulting her.
• In October 2021, an Uber driver was accused of trying to rape a woman near Pittsburgh rather than take her to her destination.
• In November 2021, an Uber driver was accused of fondling and raping a passenger in Perris, California.
• In February 2022, an Uber driver was accused of sexually assaulting and trying to rape a woman who was a passenger in his vehicle in California.

"Uber's whole business model is predicated on giving people a safe ride home, but rider safety was never their concern – growth was, at the expense of their passengers' safety," Adam Slater, founding partner of the law firm representing the women, said in a statement. "While the company has acknowledged this crisis of sexual assault in recent years, its actual response has been slow and inadequate, with horrific consequences."

The attorneys said Uber has long maintained a policy not to report criminal activity, including assaults and rape, to law enforcement.

"There is so much more that Uber can be doing to protect riders: adding cameras to deter assaults, performing more robust background checks on drivers, creating a warning system when drivers don't stay on a path to a destination," Slater said. "But the company refuses to, and that's why my firm has 550 clients with claims against Uber and we're investigating at least 150 more. Acknowledging the problem through safety reports is not enough. It is well past time for Uber to take concrete actions to protect its customers."

In its June 2022 safety report, Uber said disclosing its safety data didn't mean the platform was less safe, but insisted it meant the company was "being more honest about the rare safety incidents that do occur." The company said 99.9 percent of trips taken in 2019 and 2020 ended without any safety incident, and that just 0.0002 percent involved a critical safety event.

"Most companies won't talk about these tough issues, but pretending they don't exist only leaves everyone less safe," Tony West, the company's chief legal officer, wrote on the company's website. "So we hope stakeholders, regulators and others will recognize, support and encourage proactive transparency efforts—not blunt them."