Rideshare Driver Stabbed by Passenger Cannot Sue Company for Negligence

Takeaway: Rideshare companies do not have a legal duty to conduct criminal background checks on passengers, so a driver who was stabbed by a passenger could not sue the company for negligence.

A rideshare company did not have a legal duty to conduct criminal background checks on passengers; therefore, a driver who was stabbed in the hand and legs by a passenger in a sudden unprovoked attack could not sue the company for negligence, a California appeals court ruled.

California law requires rideshare companies to conduct background checks on drivers and prohibits the companies from employing, contracting with, or retaining drivers with certain convictions. The disqualifying convictions include violent felonies.

The driver sued the company for negligence, alleging that the passenger who attacked him had a long history of criminal convictions. The driver argued that because the company had a pre-existing relationship with its passengers, it had the opportunity to conduct background checks on all its passengers, similar to the checks it performs on its drivers.

The company, however, does not conduct background checks on passengers to determine whether they pose a risk of harm to drivers. The driver asserted that if the company had conducted such a background check, it would have known of the passenger’s criminal background and should have advised the driver about it.

The company sought to have the lawsuit dismissed before trial, asserting that it had no legal duty to conduct background checks on passengers and therefore was not negligent. The trial court dismissed the lawsuit, and the driver appealed.

Duty to Protect Others from Third Party Conduct

The court noted that, to establish a cause of action for negligence, the plaintiff must first show that the defendant had a duty to use due care.

In general, each person has a duty to act with reasonable care under the circumstances. However, one owes no duty to control the conduct of another, nor to warn those endangered by such conduct, the court said.

There is generally no duty to protect others from the conduct of third parties, but the “special relationship” doctrine is an exception to this general rule. In a case involving harm caused by a third party, a person may have an affirmative duty to protect the victim of another’s harm if that person is in a “special relationship” with either the victim or the person who created the harm, the court explained.

If the court determines there is a special relationship between the parties, the court must then consult the factors described by the California Supreme Court in Rowland v. Christian (1968) to determine whether relevant policy considerations counsel limiting that duty, the appeals court said.

The company conceded that it was in a special relationship with the driver when the attack occurred. The court noted that it was therefore required to consider whether the Rowland factors indicated that the duty arising out of that special relationship should be limited.

Under Rowland, a departure from the general principle that all persons owe a duty of care to avoid injuring others involves the balancing of a number of considerations, including:

• The foreseeability of the harm to the plaintiff.
• The closeness of the connection between the defendant’s conduct and the injury suffered.
• The policy of preventing future harm.
• The extent of the burden to the defendant and the consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care.

In assessing the Rowland factors in cases involving a defendant’s duty to prevent third-party criminal conduct, courts have employed a sliding-scale balancing formula, the court said.

The court then concluded that conducting criminal background checks on all passengers would be highly burdensome for the company. In addition, a duty to conduct criminal background checks on all rideshare passengers could raise concerns about the disproportionate exclusion of certain racial groups and would additionally raise concerns regarding consumer privacy, the court determined. The measures the driver was proposing would therefore create potential legal liability for the company, related to privacy concerns and disparate impact.

In addition, the driver had not established that his attack was foreseeable, the court said. There was minimal causal connection between the company’s failure to obtain background checks on all passengers and a passenger perpetrating violence against a driver. Criminal background check reports on every prospective rider would not necessarily provide information from which either the company or individual drivers could reliably decide whether a potential passenger posed a threat of violence to the driver.

The appeals court affirmed the trial court’s decision dismissing the lawsuit before trial.

Al Shikha v. Lyft, Calif. Ct. App., No. B321882 (May 17, 2024).     

Joanne Deschenaux, J.D. is a freelance writer in Annapolis, Md.