Lyft driver lounge called the Hub. Located at 2300 26th Street in San Francisco. Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM

Ride-hailing firm Lyft Inc. is opposing a move by plaintiffs attorneys to coordinate more than 20 lawsuits that allege its drivers sexually assaulted passengers.

In a Los Angeles courtroom Wednesday, lawyers argued over whether to coordinate the suits as part of California's Judicial Council Coordinated Proceedings. Lyft, represented by Beth Stewart, a partner at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C., called the proposed move an "improvident and unprecedented invitation" to make "San Francisco Superior Court a national clearinghouse for claims against San Francisco-based companies," according to court documents.

"The cases do not concern a mass tort: plaintiffs do not allege that they were injured in the same catastrophic accident or by the same environmental contamination," she wrote in a Nov. 6 filing. "Nor, like many instances of coordinated litigation, do they allege they used the same defective drug or medical device. The sole common thread in the cases is that plaintiffs used the Lyft app to match with a driver."

She noted that the 38 alleged incidences in the cases occurred in 19 states, including California, Florida, New Jersey and New York.

Plaintiffs attorneys William Levin of San Francisco's Levin Simes Abrams and Brooks Cutter of Cutter Law in Oakland argued for coordination, according to attorney Mike Bomberger of San Diego's Estey & Bomberger, who was present at Wednesday's hearing. Bomberger's firm has filed five lawsuits on behalf of nearly 40 women.

"All these cases begin and end when Lyft created this app that put two strangers together in legalized hitchhiking," he said. "Their product created that platform, and they created the environment where predators can assault women. Also, they had knowledge for a long period of time of the number of assaults that happen in their vehicles."

Neither Stewart nor Lyft's local attorney, Warren Metlitzky of San Francisco's Conrad & Metlitzky, responded to requests for comment. Lyft spokeswoman Ashley Adams declined to comment.

The lawsuits, most filed in the past few months, alleged that Lyft failed to respond to incidences of sexual assault by its drivers against passengers, either by changing its screening practices or through its monitoring and surveillance procedures.

On Sept. 4, plaintiffs firm Levin Simes Abrams filed a petition to coordinate the lawsuits. Firm attorney Meghan McCormick said Lyft's headquarters in San Francisco and its "corporate conduct and decision making" are common factors in all the cases, which seek changes not unlike what Uber announced in its U.S. Safety Report last month.

"In our mind, it's an indication of what at a minimum Lyft could do more to be more responsible as a company in terms of ensuring the safety of its passengers," said McCormick, whose firm has 100 sexual assault clients who have sued Lyft, or plan to do so. "More than anything, we'd like there to be mandatory cameras in the car and a mechanism for a passenger to confirm a change in route or destination."

Bomberger, who filed the first sexual assault case in 2018, said a coordinated proceeding would have another benefit: helping plaintiffs attorneys combat what he called Lyft's refusal to provide discovery materials.

"I've been practicing for 24 years now, and I have never been part of a litigation where the defendant has stalled and slowed down discovery and litigation to the extent Lyft has," he said. "That's one of the reasons it's so important we have this consolidation—so we have one judge who can see how Lyft has conducted itself in discovery."