A judge has denied a motion by a Lyft Inc. driver to dismiss all or some of the claims filed against him in a lawsuit brought by a passenger who alleges that she jumped out of a car window trying to protect herself moments before her unconscious driver crashed into a parked vehicle in 2021.
Want to get caught up on what's happening in SoCal every weekday afternoon? Click to follow The L.A. Local wherever you get podcasts.
The driver, Christian Denis Cooper, contended he suffered a diabetic emergency just before hitting the other car and therefore could not be held liable to plaintiff Lal Finci. Lyft also was originally sued, but was dropped by the plaintiff as a defendant in February 2024.
During a hearing Tuesday, Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Mark A. Young rejected Cooper's dismissal argument.
"Here, a jury must decide, in light of all the circumstances, whether (Cooper's) decision to continue driving was reasonable," Young wrote. "He also apparently had some level of consciousness while he drove erratically, ignored plaintiff's pleas to leave and gave plaintiff a `scary' and `creepy' face, all before losing consciousness."
The judge also noted that Finci tried to awaken Cooper without success, so she took off her seatbelt, rolled down a window, hung out her body and slowly dropped to the pavement, where she was injured. Finci later went to a nearby police station and reported she was kidnapped by someone who might have been a "psychopath," the judge further wrote.
Cooper's lawyers contended that Finci caused her own injuries when she jumped from Cooper's car.
"She became hysterical and thought she was being kidnapped, so she rolled down her window, hung her body out the window and dropped to the asphalt while the car was moving and suffered physical injuries," Cooper's attorneys stated in their court papers.
According to Finci's complaint, she had summoned a Lyft ride in the early afternoon of July 16, 2021, to travel from Santa Monica to Rodeo Drive. Cooper told Finci that his spouse had cancer and that he needed to stop to buy some things from a 7-Eleven store on Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, the suit filed in July 2023 states.
Trial of Finci's suit is scheduled July 7.
Follow KNX News 97.1 FM
