California's Second District, Division Three, has ruled the general duty of due care one owes to another does not extend to include a duty owed by ride-share platforms to its drivers to perform "background checks" on all passengers. (Shikha v. Lyft (May 17, 2024, B321882.)
Writing for the court, Justice Adams summarized the factual and procedural background succinctly:
In February 2020, Al Shikha was working as a Lyft driver when he accepted a ride request through the Lyft app from passenger Ricky A. Alvarez. During the ride, and without any warning or provocation, Alvarez repeatedly stabbed Al Shikha, causing lacerations to Al Shikha’s left hand and both legs. In April 2020, Al Shikha filed a complaint asserting three causes of action against Lyft: (1) failure to provide workers’ compensation insurance; (2) negligence; and (3) failure to provide a safe place of employment. (Id., pp. 2-3.)
The Second District explained there was no justification for imposing such a duty despite the general rule that all persons owe a duty of due care to others to act reasonably. (See, e.g., Civil Code section 1714.1.) As the Second District opinion teaches, the statutory duty to verify the criminal record of a driver does not extend to doing so for passengers. As to any common-law duty, Shikha found no duty was owed to its own drivers even though Lyft was admittedly in a "special relationship" with these persons. This conclusion required analysis of the factors enunciated by the Supreme Court in 1969's Rowland v. Christian, including the crucial factor of foreseeability:
To depart from the general principle that all persons owe a duty of care to avoid injuring others . . . ‘involves the balancing of a number of considerations’: ‘the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant’s conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant’s conduct, the policy of preventing future harm, the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach, and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved.’ [Citation.]” (Brown, supra, 11 Cal.5th at p. 217, citing Rowland, supra, 69 Cal.2d at pp. 112– 113; accord, Kuciemba v. Victory Woodworks, Inc. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 993, 1021 (Kuciemba).) We consider the Rowland factors at “ ‘a relatively broad level of factual generality.’ [Citation.]” [Citation.] . . . Before analyzing the Rowland factors, we must identify the specific duty Al Shikha asserts Lyft should undertake. (Castaneda v. Olsher (2007) 41 Cal.4th 1205, 1214 (Castaneda).) The complaint alleges Lyft has a duty to conduct “basic, inexpensive public record background checks on passengers to determine whether they pose a risk of harm to drivers (or to obtain consent from drivers that they may be transporting a known criminal).” On appeal, Al Shikha argues Lyft is required to “either warn drivers about riders with serious criminal histories[ ] or otherwise exclude such riders from its network.”“ ‘The most important factor to consider in determining whether to create an exception to the general duty to exercise ordinary care . . . is whether the injury in question was foreseeable.’ [Citations.]” (Regents, supra, 4 Cal.5th at p. 629.) In assessing the Rowland factors in cases involving a defendant’s duty to prevent third party criminal conduct, courts have employed a “sliding-scale balancing formula.” [Citation.] (Id., pp. 8-10.)
Discussing cases involving the duty to prevent the criminal acts of third parties, such as Ann M. v. Pacific Plaza v. Pacific Plaza Shopping Center (1993) 6 Cal. 4th 666, the Second District explained that in deciding whether to impose a duty of due care, the "burden" of preventing the plaintiff's harm must be balanced against the effectiveness of the proposed precautions. Here, this analysis indicated no duty of due care was owed given the proposed precaution (background checks) was both burdensome and of "dubious" effectiveness:
Al Shikha contends conducting criminal background checks on all potential rideshare passengers would entail minimal costs and would not be highly burdensome. Lyft, in contrast, asserts the obligation would impose significant financial and social burdens. Lyft argues screening each passenger would require a “huge and unwieldy infrastructure”; that it would expose Lyft to liability because there is no guarantee it would successfully identify people inclined to violence; it would be impossible for passengers to download and sign up for the app at the time a ride is needed; it would burden those with criminal histories who are not inclined to violence but still need transportation; it would unfairly discriminate against broad segments of the population; it would have an “unfair or even unlawful[ly] discriminatory effect on minorities and marginalized populations”; and it would conflict with the strong public policy of maintaining consumer privacy. As the court determined in Castaneda, we similarly conclude here that conducting criminal background checks on all rideshare passengers would be “a burdensome, dubiously effective and socially questionable obligation . . . .” (Castaneda, supra, 41 Cal.4th at p. 1217.) (Id., p. 17.)
The Shikha court noted that not only did plaintiff fail to provide any cogent argument as to why and how a background check would prevent future injuries, but logic dictated background checks cast a very wide net, as nearly one in three adult Californians have an arrest record. (Id., p. 19.)
It should also be noted Shikha discussed the recent case of Kuciemba v. Victory Woodwork, involving the supposed duty owed by a landowner to the spouse of someone working on the land to prevent the worker's exposure to COVID-19. The California Supreme Court unanimously held the spouse's was limited to a workers compensation remedy.
Of course, plaintiff in Shikha argued there was a "failure to warn" of the potential harm from the violent passenger. However, in Moses v. McKeever a visitor to a condo similarly argued they were owed the duty to be "warned" about a defect in the HOA's common area because such an injury to those entering and exiting the condo was "foreseeable." However, the appellate court found there was no duty owed by an individual owner or tenant to warn of defects in the HOA's common area.
Analysis
When looking at both practicalities and public policy, it appears the result in Shikha could not have been otherwise. Indeed, if the duty plaintiff sought to impose were imposed on ride-sharing services, a whole host of persons who do not have access to their own vehicle could potentially be barred from using these services. This includes not only convicted felons but also, more broadly, those who have been arrested for a wide variety of offenses even if not ultimately charged or convicted.
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