Nadrich & Cohen Accident Injury Lawyers finds Uber's protocols to prevent sexual assault to be inadequate. The law firm asserts that Uber has been aware that its service is unsafe for women, but refuses to implement the proper safety measures in response.
LOS ANGELES, March 21, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Nadrich & Cohen Accident Injury Lawyers, a California-based personal injury law firm, finds Uber's protocols intended to prevent sexual assault to be inadequate.
According to allegations in a master complaint filed in United States District Court, Northern District of California, San Francisco Division on February 15, 2024, Uber has been aware since 2014 that its passengers were being sexually assaulted by its drivers, but failed to adopt necessary safety measures in response.
"Uber has known for years that its service is unsafe for women, but has failed to implement common sense safety measures to protect women all while specifically advertising that its service is safe for women," said Jeffrey Nadrich, managing partner of Nadrich & Cohen Accident Injury Lawyers.
The master complaint alleges that Uber consciously decided not to deter its drivers from misconduct, as doing so would demonstrate that the company has control over the drivers, thereby supporting claims that the drivers are employees. The complaint alleges Uber wishes to avoid its drivers being considered employees to avoid spending money on unemployment insurance, worker's compensation and overtime.
The complaint alleges Uber's background checks are inadequate, as they don't include biometric data like fingerprints and use public databases which can be sparse instead of the FBI database which the taxi industry uses. The complaint claims Uber does this intentionally because their business model requires a constant, rapid influx of new drivers.
The complaint claims that while Uber knows cameras in its cars would deter sexual assault, Uber chooses not to require cameras because doing so would slow the influx of new drivers, discourage drivers from signing up, and jeopardize the company's argument that its drivers are not employees.
The complaint alleges that, for the majority of the company's time in business, Uber has required more than just a single complaint of sexual assault before it terminated drivers, alleging the company "would sometimes tolerate three or four sexual assaults before terminating the driver."
The complaint claims that when Uber first launched its transportation system, it failed to hire safety experts or spend any time or money thinking about the prevention of sexual assault, claiming that Uber's safety efforts "are primarily focused on appearing safe, not actually being safe."
"Uber chose to achieve growth at the expense of women's safety," the complaint alleges.
The complaint alleges that when riders give low ratings to drivers, they are given 44 different options to choose from, with none of them including sexual assault, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct, claiming this is "impeding reports of sexual assault."
The complaint also claims that Uber misleads riders by showing riders star ratings which only reflect the driver's past 500 trips rather than a full track record, and further misleads riders by dropping some bad reviews from displayed overall star ratings.
According to a February 29 Law360 report, Uber was supposed to produce all documents to a court, by January 31, which the company had previously produced to enforcement, regulatory or legislative entities relating to government inquiries or investigations of the company regarding sexual assault. However, according to the report, in February, plaintiffs' counsel told the court the company had failed to produce the documents, asking the court for help in securing these documents.
"It is absolutely unacceptable that Uber failed to produce the documents it was ordered by the court to produce," Nadrich said.
Media Contact
Jennifer Poole, Nadrich & Cohen Accident Injury Lawyers, 1 (800)718-4658, [email protected], https://personalinjurylawcal.com/
SOURCE Nadrich & Cohen Accident Injury Lawyers
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