A woman sued the ride-sharing company Lyft on January 9, after claiming that she became pregnant after allegedly being repeatedly raped by one of its drivers in California, during a trip she had requested through the application.
The alleged victim was the mother of a premature baby.
Tabatha Means, from Leesburg, Florida, stated in the complaint – cited by Law & Crime – that on April 28, 2019, she requested a trip to the place where she was staying after a night of drinking.
The woman claims that the driver who picked her up told her to get into the passenger seat and that, during the trip, she made inappropriate comments to him.
Upon reaching their destination, the man parked the vehicle and apparently began to touch her, even though she was trying to get out of the car and asked him not to.
Means then claims that the driver followed her to the place where she was staying and raped her repeatedly and even forced her to perform oral sex on him, without listening to her pleas for him to stop.
File image of a woman holding a phone with the Lyft logo on her phone's screen.SOPA Images / SOPA Images/LightRocket via Gett
A month later, she suspected she was pregnant, so she took a test that came back positive.
A doctor would confirm it two weeks later.
Means stipulated in the complaint that she suffered three hemorrhages before giving birth to her third child via an emergency cesarean section.
The little one was born at 33 weeks of gestation, so he was admitted to intensive care for almost a month.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in California, said Means “later obtained an administrative order from Florida Child Support Services to obtain a DNA sample from the Lyft driver” and that the results revealed “ a 99.9999999998% chance that the Lyft driver is the father of the child.”
The document also lists 10 charges, including general negligence, improper hiring, breach of contract and strict product liability.
The victim is seeking an unspecified amount of damages and to have the case go to trial.
Versions found
After the filing of the lawsuit, the company issued a statement cited by different media in which it stated that what Means described had no “place” in its work system and distanced itself from what happened.
“The alleged 2019 incident did not take place on the Lyft platform while it was being used, but rather involved a separate trip arranged between the individuals involved,” the statement read.
“Lyft has worked to design policies and features that protect both drivers and passengers, and we are always working to make this platform even safer.”
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The company said that an internal investigation discovered that earlier that night the driver took Means to the place where she was drinking and that they later organized another trip off the platform to return her to the place where she was staying.
Lyft indicated that hours passed between the original trip and the time of the alleged attack.
In addition, he also refused to give more details to CNN about his investigation, due to the pending judicial process.
Likewise, the company also reported that the alleged aggressor, who was not named in the company or in the statement, has not worked for the platform for several years, without giving more details about when or why he stopped doing so, and if before had been the subject of some legal action.
In addition, the company stated that it was not aware of the alleged incident until years later and that the woman did not present any security or customer service complaint to the company, nor did she go to law enforcement.
“The police were never involved and no police report was filed for this incident,” she said.
However, Means explained to CNN that she only saw the driver once that night, when she requested a ride from the bar to the place where she was staying, and that the car had been requested by her ex-husband, with whom she had gone out that night.
“A car arrived with a visible Lyft light on and the driver rolled down the passenger side window and confirmed that he had gone to pick up Means,” the complaint filed read.
“I had never seen that man in my life,” the alleged victim said.
He did not report “out of fear”
Means' attorney, Rachel Adams, said at a news conference after filing the complaint that a Lyft receipt shows an 11-minute ride shortly after midnight from a residential area to a street lined with bars, but does not show the journey. complete and that she believes that the driver “inappropriately terminated” the service shortly after she got into the car to go home and that she did not find out because it was her husband who requested the car.
Adamas stated that the incident against his client “involved a trip booked through the Lyft application and the company's attempt to deflect its responsibility “is a perfect example of its bad faith handling” of the incident.
The litigant added that Means was raped by a driver who took advantage of her when she was “in a vulnerable state” and that if she did not approach the authorities it was “out of fear” of retaliation.
“All of this resulted in the pregnancy and the birth of her child.”
Means told CNN that he feared no one would believe him.
RAINN, an anti-sexual assault organization, said two out of three rapes go unreported, almost always because victims fear retaliation or that someone will think they were lying.
“I should have gone to the hospital and had a medical test,” said the woman, who said she had not realized that “something terrible” had happened to her until one of her children's first birthdays approached.