Lyft Sued by Rider Who Claims Driver Told Her She's Too Big for His Car

TMZ

At least one Lyft driver's got a limit to how much his vehicle will lift ... according to a Detroit woman who claims a driver refused her a ride due to her weight, and now she's taking the company to court.

Transcript

00:00This case has really set off a lot of discussion about when they can deny people and I've seen

00:09some Lyft and Uber drivers saying we are independent contractors, we have the right to deny people

00:15for all sorts of reasons because they're getting into our personal vehicles.

00:19That's fine, I understand where they're coming from, I respect everybody's opinion, but still

00:23at the same time I feel like us as bigger people, we're not accommodating, he didn't

00:28even try.

00:29As soon as he looked at me, he dismissed me, you know, so I just felt like that was wrong.

00:33He never opened the door, you didn't get into the car and then he decided?

00:37He just looked at you and said that?

00:39No doors were open, the doors were locked as I was walking to the car, like, it was

00:44just nothing, it was just like, I see you, you big, you can't fit in my car.

00:48I heard the part where you said, I've been through this before.

00:53Have you heard from other people in Detroit once you posted this video?

00:58I'm just wondering if there were other people who said, yeah, I've dealt with that guy or

01:01I've just had this issue with rideshares in general.

01:04So to clear things up, I've never been through this before, you know, that's why I was so

01:08shocked and I'm so hurt about it, but after I shared my story with the world, like a lot

01:14of people, a lot of people came to me and told me the same thing had happened to them.

01:19You know, like if I didn't share it to the world, then who would have, who would have

01:23done it?

01:24You know, Lyft drivers then reached out to me and told me that wasn't right.

01:29They would have did all they could to, you know, to get me to my destination.

01:34Lyft even, you know, commented to me.

01:38What did they say?

01:40They said they don't condone discrimination.

01:43They also said we don't condone how the driver treated you, basically, in so many words.

01:50Was that before or after you filed the lawsuit?

01:53They reached out to me before and they also tried to reach out to me again.

01:58So before we filed the law, yeah, before we filed the lawsuit.

02:02Zach, have they, has Lyft made any, insinuated that they would be interested in talking about

02:08a settlement yet or, because it is interesting that they reached out and maybe their intent

02:13was dank, dank to reach out to you and in hopes that it didn't get to this level where

02:19now it's become a national, it's getting national attention.

02:23Have they said anything about that, Zach?

02:25We haven't heard anything from them.

02:27They haven't reached out to the attorneys.

02:29So no, I'm a little surprised they've been trying to reach my client directly.

02:33So if they would like to discuss it, you know, they should be reaching out to her attorneys.

02:37I actually looked up the, once we read your lawsuit and looked up and saw that this law

02:42in Michigan where you cannot discriminate based on someone's size or their weight, that's

02:49unique to Michigan, right?

02:50And I'm just curious whether Lyft instructs their drivers in Michigan that that is something

02:56they have to be aware of.

02:57So in Michigan, there's a civil rights act that applies to any public accommodations,

03:03providing transportation as a public accommodation.

03:04You know, what the civil rights act says is you can't discriminate based on weight.

03:09And so what that means is you can't deny somebody a service such as transportation because of

03:13their weight.

03:14Like you said, we've seen a lot of drivers come out and say that they are entitled to

03:18deny somebody access because of their weight, which Michigan law says you absolutely cannot

03:22do. So if Lyft is not instructing their drivers that they can't discriminate based on weight,

03:28I hope this lawsuit will change that and make sure that they tell all of their drivers in

03:32the future that you cannot deny somebody a service because of their weight.

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