SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – San Francisco's embattled Uber was named in a sexual assault suit on Wednesday, according to reporting by the San Francisco Chronicle.
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The ride-share company has been accused of allowing a pattern of sexual abuse by its drivers to continue unabated, the paper reported.
Five women have come forward against the company in a suit filed in the Superior Court of San Francisco by attorney Michael Carney.
In the suit, they allege that the company perpetuates a "toxic-male culture ... which started at the very top of Uber by placing profits and growth over safety above all else," the paper reported.
While this suit has been filed on behalf of five Jane Does, Carney's firm has others coming down the pike on behalf of around 550 women and men, according to the paper. The company "became aware as early as 2014 that its drivers were sexually assaulting and raping female passengers" but took no action, the suit alleges according to the paper.
Instead, Uber started a fee initiative, where riders could pay an additional $1 that would allegedly go towards background checks and other procedures to make rides safer, the paper reported. The suit alleges that the money wasn't used for this.
The suit alleges that the drivers for the company are not thoroughly checked out, according to the paper, and a complaint against a driver doesn't necessarily mean they will lose their job.
According to the company's most recently published U.S. Safety Report in June, there were 3,824 reports of sexual assault between 2019 and 2020. These reports span five categories: non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual body part, attempted non-consensual sexual penetration, non-consensual touching of a sexual body part, and non-consensual kissing of a sexual body part, and non-consensual sexual penetration.
According to the company this is a 38% decrease in reported incidents from the previous safety report, conducted for 2017 and 2018.
Uber declined to comment on the suit in a statement to KCBS Radio Thursday morning, but did provide a general comment, "Sexual assault is a horrific crime and we take every single report seriously. There is nothing more important than safety, which is why Uber has built new safety features, established survivor-centric policies, and been more transparent about serious incidents. While we can't comment on pending litigation, we will continue to keep safety at the heart of our work."
The statement also included bullets of background information on various safety initiatives adopted by the company, some from 2020 and 2021.
The company acknowledged mistakes in a separate statement on Monday in response to an in-depth investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists on files leaked by former Uber executive Mark MacGann on how the company manipulated governments around the world for its own benefit.
"There has been no shortage of reporting on Uber's mistakes prior to 2017. Thousands of stories have been published, multiple books have been written—there’s even been a TV series," the statement began. "Five years ago, those mistakes culminated in one of the most infamous reckonings in the history of corporate America. That reckoning led to an enormous amount of public scrutiny, a number of high-profile lawsuits, multiple government investigations, and the termination of several senior executives."
"We have not and will not make excuses for past behavior that is clearly not in line with our present values. Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we've done over the last five years and what we will do in the years to come," the statement concluded.
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