A woman in Southern California is suing a Lyft driver for negligence after she jumped out the window of the moving ride-share vehicle last year after the driver became unresponsive and began driving erratically.
Lyft rider Lal Finci jumped out the window of the moving ride-share vehicle just before it hit a parked car, sustaining injuries. Christian Denis Cooper, the Lyft driver, is looking to have the case dismissed, because he says he actually passed out while behind the wheel due to a medical emergency.
According to the suit, everything started on the afternoon of July 16, 2021, when Finci called for a Lyft to take her from Santa Monica to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. A Lyft arrived driven by a man named Christian Denis Cooper. The suit, which was filed in 2023, says Cooper picked up Finci but didn’t immediately begin to take her to destination because he needed to grab some things from 7-Eleven, according to the Los Angeles Daily News:
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. The driver returned 15 to 20 minutes later and asked Finci, “Are you ready for the ride?” according to the suit.
Even after asking “are you ready for the ride,” Cooper still didn’t start driving, which made her ask if he was feeling OK to drive, Finci’s complaint says. She says that when he came out of the store he didn’t look right, describing him as looking “very scary and creepy.” When he did start driving, Finci says that he was driving “unsafely.” She claims that other drivers were yelling at him and that at one point, as they made their way down Wilshire Boulevard, Cooper sometimes drove on the sidewalk all while ignoring her yells for him to stop. Finci says that’s when she noticed that Cooper’s eyes were shut. It turns out Cooper was having a diabetic emergency.
The suit states that a few moments later, Finci saw that the driver’s eyes were shut, so she reached over and tried to awaken him after he appeared to be unconscious. He momentarily woke up and then passed out again,” the suit states.
As the Daily News reports, thinking the car would crash Finci tried opening the door to get out, but it was locked. That’s when she managed to roll the window down and jump out of the car. As she hit the ground, Finci says she heard a crash as Cooper’s Lyft hit a parked car and came to a stop. According to Finci’s attorneys, she suffered “severe physical and emotional harm” from the ride and jumping out the car. Despite that, Finci didn’t wait around until police arrived; she left before they got there. After calling a friend to come pick her up, she went to file a police report.
She told police that said she feared she was being kidnapped, calling Cooper a “psychopath.” Finci eventually filed suit against Lyft, claiming “negligence, negligent hiring, supervision and retention, negligent infliction of emotional distress, employer liability and breach of contract” over Cooper’s actions. However, the suit was dropped in February 2024 after Finci decided not to pursue the case anymore. Instead, she went after Cooper.
Finci and her lawyers claim Cooper was negligent, as the LA Daily News pointed out. “The sole alleged nature of his negligence was his failure to deliver her safely to her destination,” Cooper’s lawyer hit back, saying there’s no way he could be negligent given the medical emergency he was experiencing because of his type 1 diabetes. “He was transporting her as a passenger under the Lyft rideshare platform when, for the first time in his life, he suffered a medical emergency due to acute hypoglycemia,” Cooper’s complaint says. His lawyers say that he purchased Red Bulls when he went into 7-Eleven to help with his low blood sugar, and he has no memory of the ride with Finci. All he remembers is waking up from the crash and being surrounded by police and paramedics.
Despite this, Finci and her lawyers think Cooper should be held responsible for her injuries. Cooper’s lawyers are arguing Finci caused her own injuries by jumping out the window of the car. Ultimately it’ll be up to the court to decide. The Daily News says a hearing is scheduled in the Santa Monica Superior Court for the end of April, where Cooper’s lawyers will seek to have him removed as a defendant in the case because “he could not have breached any obligation regarding Finci’s safety while he was incapacitated.”