Uber asked for our trust; now it’s asking a different question
Uber sexual assault defense raises uncomfortable questions
Every weekend in Florida, millions of people make the same decision.
They leave a restaurant in Miami. They walk out of a concert in Tampa. They fly into Orlando for a convention or bring the kids to Disney. Maybe they’ve had a couple of drinks. Maybe they’re tired. Maybe they’re in a city they don’t know.
So they pull out their phone and order an Uber.
We’ve all accepted that as the smart thing to do.
In fact, we’ve encouraged it.
Parents tell their late-teen-and-beyond children to do it. Friends take each other’s keys and say, “I’ll get you an Uber.” Hotels recommend it. Restaurants recommend it. Tourism officials practically depend on it. Florida’s hospitality industry works because visitors believe there’s a safe way to get around without driving themselves.
Uber didn’t accidentally become part of that conversation. It made itself part of that conversation. And for years, the company told us the responsible choice wasn’t to drive after drinking. The responsible choice was to trust them.
That’s why I found this week’s social media storm about Uber’s defense of sexual-assault lawsuits so difficult to read.
According to traditional media reports and those infuriated by them, women have been questioned not only about the assaults they say occurred, but about how much they drank, what they were wearing, what shoes they had on and intensely personal details of their past.
I kept coming back to one thought. Wasn’t drinking the very reason Uber wanted people to call an Uber in the first place? That isn’t some side benefit of the business model. It’s the actual business model, literally the one that enabled Uber to raise $22.2 Billion with a very large B over 20 investment rounds.
Uber didn’t become one of the world’s largest transportation companies simply because its app was convenient (and easy to see in the dark while, well, drunk). It became enormously successful because it persuaded people to trust complete strangers with one of the most vulnerable moments of their day: getting home safely.
That’s a remarkable amount of trust. And, as a trial lawyer, I can assure you that trust cuts both ways.
Again, as a trial lawyer, I don’t expect corporations to surrender when they’re sued. They shouldn’t. Every defendant deserves a fair opportunity to defend itself, and every lawyer has an obligation to examine the facts. But there is a difference between defending a lawsuit and appearing to challenge the very decisions your company spent years encouraging people to make.
If your message is, “Don’t drive after drinking. Ride with us instead,” then don’t be surprised when the people who relied on that message had, in fact, been drinking, often to excess.
That isn’t hypocrisy on the passenger’s part. It’s reliance.
We in Florida understand that better than almost anywhere else.
Our economy is built on people traveling. Millions of visitors arrive here every year without knowing our roads, our neighborhoods or even where they’re staying. They rely on rideshare because that’s what they’ve been taught is the safest option. Residents do the same after football games, concerts, business dinners and nights out with friends.
That trust isn’t an accident.
Uber invested billions of dollars creating it.
Which is why this moment feels so jarring.
You can’t spend nearly two decades asking the public to believe you’re the safe alternative to impaired driving and then appear to suggest that someone who accepted your invitation exercised poor judgment because she had been drinking.
Those are fundamentally different messages.
One says, “Trust us,” while the other sounds uncomfortably close to, “You should have known better.”
Those ideas cannot comfortably exist together.
Whether Uber ultimately wins or loses any particular lawsuit isn’t the point. The point is much simpler.
For years, Uber asked the public to believe that getting into one of its cars was the responsible decision after a night out. If that’s still the promise, then it shouldn’t disappear the moment someone walks into a courtroom.
Trust is hard to earn. It can disappear much faster.
*****
Sean C. Domnick is a shareholder at Rafferty Domnick Cunningham & Yaffa, and has been recognized as a Top 100 Florida Super Lawyer for 10 consecutive years.
This column originally ran in the Orlando Sentinel.
