Missouri State Appellate Panel Allows Plaintiff to State a Claim for Products Liability Against Lyft for its Mobile Ridesharing App

In a matter of first impression, a majority of a three-member panel of the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District held that in certain circumstances mobile ride sharing applications may be considered products to support product liability claims at the motion to dismiss stage. In doing so, the panel applied a new test. The dissenting member concurred with the new test but would have sustained the trial court’s dismissal of the claims on the grounds that the allegations in Plaintiff’s Petition did not satisfy that test. Plaintiff’s lawsuit asserted both products liability and negligence claims; this blog focuses on the former.

The Alleged Incident and Plaintiff’s Claims

The case arose from the death of a Lyft driver, Andrew Ameer, who was killed when he stopped to pick up a passenger. Two minors had requested a Lyft ride using a false name, false email address, and an anonymous form of payment. When Mr. Ameer stopped at the requested pick-up location, one of the defendants and another minor pulled guns on Mr. Ameer to rob him. During this altercation, Mr. Ameer was shot and killed.

The plaintiff, Mr. Ameer’s mother, filed a petition alleging products liability and negligence claims against Lyft along with other claims against the minor defendants. The products liability claims alleged that Lyft’s rideshare app was defective because it did not have proper identity, age, and GPS verification technology and data pattern analysis to screen out fraudulent riders like the assailants in this case. Further, the petition claimed that Mr. Ameer’s death was caused by this defect in the app.

The circuit court dismissed all products liability and negligence claims against Lyft. When evaluating a motion to dismiss, a court assumes all facts alleged are true. But here there was an important threshold question for the court to decide: to survive Lyft’s motion to dismiss, plaintiff’s product liability claims for strict liability defective design, negligent design, and negligent failure to warn all required that the allegedly defective Lyft app is considered a product.

The Appellate Court’s Analysis

On appeal, the Court first evaluated whether the Lyft app and other mobile ridesharing apps are products. In past decisions, Missouri courts have found that scouting programs, the supply of electricity, medical services, and services in general are not products for the purpose of product liability claims. On the other hand, tangible items such as cigarettes, seats in a car, plane parts, and chain and rachet systems are products.

Writing for the majority, Judge Clayton first noted that mobile ridesharing apps are not comparable to either tangible items or services. Instead of analyzing the claim through the lens of traditional products liability categories, the Court applied a new test, i.e.: to survive a motion to dismiss, a products liability claim against a mobile ridesharing app must allege facts that indicate (1) the app has sufficient similarities to a tangible product, and (2) the injury or death resulted from the defect in the app itself, whether in the design or functionality, rather than from problems with the app developer’s services or some other aspect of its business model.

Assuming all the alleged facts and reasonable inferences therefrom were true, all members of the panel found that the Lyft app was sufficiently similar to a tangible product under the first part of the test. To purchase or sell a ride, both the passenger and driver must download and use the Lyft app. The alleged facts indicate that Lyft is comparable to designers of tangible products because Lyft profits from the Lyft app and creates a demand for and reliance on the app for both drivers and passengers.

The Majority’s Reasoning

The Court of Appeals majority further held that the petition alleged Mr. Ameer’s death resulted from a defect in the Lyft app itself, satisfying the second part of the test. The petition alleged that the Lyft app was defective and unreasonably dangerous because it failed to protect drivers from fraudulent passengers through data verification technology of age, identity, violent propensity, and GPS coordinates. Additionally, the petition alleged that the minors took advantage of the defects of the Lyft app to fraudulently request a ride and ultimately shoot and kill Mr. Ameer. Notably, the petition alleged that Lyft has implemented measures in other states to verify the identity of potential passengers, indicating that the defect could be have been avoided in Missouri.

Accordingly, the panel reversed the dismissal of the product liability claims against Lyft and allowed the case to continue in the trial court. While not discussed in depth here, the Court also reversed the dismissal of the negligence claims against Lyft.

The Dissenting Opinion

In his dissenting opinion, Judge Torbitzky criticized the finding that the purported defect which caused Mr. Ameer’s death arose from the app itself. Instead, Judge Torbitzky described the issue as a failure to screen and verify potential passengers – which arises from Lyft’s business model and how it provides its ridesharing service. The alleged facts indicate that Lyft has access to information and technology which could verify the identity of passengers thus preventing criminal actors. However, this faults Lyft for the way it runs its business, not the app itself. In other words, the fact that Lyft chose not to utilize identification verification in Missouri is a business decision, not a defect in the app.

According to Judge Torbitzky, the facts of this case are unlike the two cases cited by the majority. One of these cases involved a Lyft driver who, while distracted by the Lyft app, hit and injured the plaintiff while driving. There the plaintiff alleged that the way the app was designed distracted the driver and caused the accident. The other case involved a verified Lyft driver who uploaded a current photo and another person’s license, with photos that did not match. This Lyft driver later sexually assaulted a passenger. There the passenger claimed that the app was defective because it failed to distinguish between the actual driver’s photo and the photograph on the driver’s license when verifying the driver.

Both of these cases involve an existing function of the app which allegedly caused the plaintiffs’ injuries. Judge Torbitzky notes that to allege a defect in the Lyft app, the defect must arise from a function of the app which was defectively performed, not a new function that the plaintiff asserts the app should have performed. Thus, because the Lyft app never intended to verify the passengers’ identities, there was no defect in the app itself.

Implications Moving Forward

For now, according to the panel, to survive a motion to dismiss, a products liability claim against a mobile ridesharing app must allege facts that indicate (1) the app has sufficient similarities to a tangible product, and (2) the injury or death resulted from the defect in the app itself, whether in the design or functionality, rather than from problems with the app developer’s services or some other aspect of its business model. This decision did not hold that the Lyft app is necessarily a product or that it has a defect– it only allowed plaintiff to survive the pleading stage. Considering that this case is a matter of first impression, this decision may not be the last word on the issue. We will continue to monitor future developments in this case (including possible review by the Missouri Supreme Court) and will report on any future cases that address if and when a ride-sharing app may be considered a defective product, under Missouri law.