Lyft sued over fatal crash, 18-month settlement delay

Eighteen months after an accident claimed the life of a 24-year-old Sacramento man taking a Lyft ride home on a rainy night, his mother and boyfriend are suing the San Francisco ride company.

Lyft’s $1 million liability policy, which includes uninsured/underinsured liability coverage, is designed to provide coverage for Lyft drivers to protect passengers and third parties.

Heading westbound on I-80 near Citrus Heights in Sacramento County, Lyft driver Shanti Adhikari, then 31, abruptly swerved to avoid a disabled vehicle up ahead, lost control of his Toyota Camry and spun out onto the shoulder, where the car smashed into two trees, killing Holland and injuring Lawrence and the driver, according to the CHP report on the incident.

(Adhikari) caused this collision by making an unsafe turning motion,” said the CHP report, adding that the Lyft driver’s actions were “the proximate cause” of Holland’s fatal injuries and amounted to “involuntary manslaughter without gross negligence.

[...] the Lyft driver had no proof of insurance, the CHP said.

Kevin Morrison, the attorney for Dinapoli and Lawrence, said data from the Camry showed it was going at 75 mph at the time of the crash, over the legal speed limit and particularly unsafe in rainy conditions.

“Injuries or damages to decedent, if any, were proximately caused by negligence, recklessness or intentional conduct of decedent in that he failed to exercise ordinary care under the circumstances,” says its answer to the case filed in San Francisco Superior Court.

While heartless-sounding, such wording is commonplace, said Andrew Bradt, assistant professor at UC Berkeley School of Law.

[...] if the passengers were found not to have been wearing seat belts, Lyft’s and its insurer’s liability could be reduced, he said.

[...] he said, Lyft’s responses are unlikely to play well in the court of public opinion — and could hurt the company’s reputation.

“It seems like misdirection if one of their main selling points is protection by an insurance policy, but the realities of recovering under that policy are extremely onerous,” Bradt said.

Lyft’s response also uses the driver’s status as an independent contractor as a defense, another commonplace legal placeholder for a possible future defense.

The driver “was an independent contractor responsible for their own means and methods, making the doctrine of respondeat superior inapplicable,” Lyft’s response said.

Holland, who had struggled with Tourette syndrome, was attending Sierra College, a community college in Rocklin, full time as a physics major with the goal of transferring to UC Davis, then pursuing medical school to be a radiologist, his mother said.