A woman from Leesburg, Florida is suing the ride-share company Lyft after claiming on of their drivers violently raped her, which impregnated her.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in California following an April 2019 incident involving Tabatha Means and an unnamed Lyft driver, who Means alleges followed her into her home after a ride and repeatedly raped her while she was intoxicated.
According to Means, the attack resulted in a pregnancy and the subsequent birth of Means’ son.
Despite Means’ claims, a spokesperson for Lyft denied the allegations in a statement.
“Safety is fundamental to Lyft and the behavior described has no place in our society. The alleged incident from 2019 did not take place on the Lyft platform while using the Lyft app, 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 riders, and we are always working to make Lyft an even safer platform. Lyft has a dedicated, around-the-clock safety response team, a partnership with ADT to aid in emergencies, and works with leading national organizations to inform our safety policies.”
In a follow-up response to Lyft by Means’ attorney, Rachel Abrams said, “As for the facts of Tabatha’s case, this incident absolutely involved a trip booked through the Lyft App, and Lyft’s attempt to deflect liability is a perfect example of its bad faith handling of this crisis.”
Means told investigators that on April 28, 2019 she had requested a ride through the Lyft app. She had been out drinking with some friends and needed a ride back to where she was staying.
“The driver arrived and told me to sit in the front seat. After a few minutes he began making inappropriate comments that was making me uncomfortable,” Means said while recalling the events of that night.
Means went on to explain that after they arrived at their destination, the driver parked the car and began touching her inappropriately. Means rejected the driver’s advances and exited the car still feeling tipsy from alcohol.
The driver then followed her into her home by force and proceeded to repeatedly rape her and forced her to engage in oral sex. Means said she begged the driver while crying to stop and at one point she claims he said, “It will be just fine and over before you know it” and then proceeded to continue raping her.
About a month after the horrible incident took place, Means suspected that she was pregnant. She took an at-home pregnancy test, which showed a positive result. Two weeks later a doctor confirmed that Means was in fact pregnant.
Means went on to endure three hemorrhage episodes before giving birth to her son by emergency C-section. The baby was born at 33 weeks and he was in the NICU for nearly a month.
Means later obtained an administrative order from Florida’s Child Support Services to obtain a DNA sample from the Lyft driver. The test results revealed that the driver was 99.9999999998% the father of her son.
The complaint lists 10 counts, including general negligence, negligent hiring, breach of contract and strict product liability. The suit also seeks an unspecified amount of damages and demands a jury trial.
Abrams said during a Tuesday news conference announcing the lawsuit that her client was taken advantage of while she was in a “vulnerable state” and said Means did not file a police report out of fear.
According to Lyft, “Police were never involved and there was no police report filed for this incident.”
“Over the years, Lyft has aggressively marketed itself as a safe alternative to driving while intoxicated, and specifically aimed those messages at young women,” Abrams said in a press release. “Lyft’s driver ‘background checks’ are a joke.”
Abrams claims that Lyft has yet to disclose safety data from 2020 to the present and hopes a resolution involves fingerprint-based background checks and not name-based background checks, as well as improving its in-app tracking system and maintaining a surveillance camera during all rides.
However, Lyft said, “We have a protocol to ensure safety of both riders and drivers and are continuing to build on our safety policies, procedures and features. Before giving a ride on the Lyft platform, all driver-applicants are screened for criminal offenses and driving incidents. Our criminal background checks are provided by a third-party company, and include a social security number trace, a nationwide criminal search, a county court records search, a federal criminal court records search as well as a U.S. Department of Justice 50-state sex offender registry search. In addition, Lyft runs annual criminal background checks on all active drivers.”
Lyft also said in its statement that the person who has been accused in the alleged incident is no longer driving on the Lyft platform and hasn’t been for years.
“Every day is a struggle,” Means said. “I’m still working to process this trauma, and at the same time I need to be a mom to my amazing children, including my youngest whose biological father was my driver-rapist. I love my kids so deeply, but there are a lot of mixed emotions when the biggest blessing in your life can also remind you of your darkest hour.”
Means said she never filed a police report because she was too fearful at the time, something she now deeply regrets. She said if she could give other rape survivors advice, she encourages women speaking up.
“Lyft is trying to blame me, or push me into saying I wanted this. Or is happened off app. I took a ride thinking I was safe, period. I was there, I know what happened. I don’t want anyone else to be afraid to speak up. Say something, because this will continue,” Means said.
