A Livingston County mother is suing Lyft, claiming the rideshare giant gave her 14-year-old daughter a ride to a sexual predator who raped her.
In a complaint filed Tuesday in Michigan’s U.S. District Court Eastern District, the parent alleges on Feb. 13, 2023, her child got a ride from a Lyft driver, who took her from her home in Brighton to a man in Dearborn who brutally assaulted the teen.
The parent, identified in the complaint only as “A.M.,” said her daughter, identified as “L.M.,” had been lured into an online relationship with an adult male predator, who manipulated and coerced her into meeting him in person. The man, identified in the complaint as “Mouad,” allegedly used his personal Lyft account to arrange for the girl to be transported to his location.
There, he “subjected her to horrific sexual exploitation and abuse, raping her and photographing her naked,” the complaint alleges.
Lyft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An attorney for the mother and daughter said the suspected rapist is no longer in the United States.
“Our understanding is that the prosecutor’s office wanted to proceed (with criminal charges), but the perpetrator fled the country, and the last we heard is that he is in Morocco,” Liz Abdnour of the East Lansing office of Abdnour Weiker said in an email.
According to the Lyft’s safety policies, minor passengers cannot get rides from Lyft unless they are accompanied by an adult. If a driver believes a solo passenger may be underage, “the driver should ask the passenger to confirm their age,” the policy says. If the rider is under 18, the driver is supposed to cancel the trip.
A.M. said her child’s driver did not question the “visibly young child” about her age. And though the driver observed “signs of distress” and asked the young rider whether she was OK, the driver did not report the incident to law enforcement or to Lyft.
“Lyft profited from this ride. Lyft enabled the ride. And Lyft bears responsibility for the outcome,” the lawsuit said. “But for Lyft’s role in transporting this minor — alone, unsupervised, and under blatantly suspicious circumstances — this exploitation would not have occurred.”
‘Horrific and entirely preventable’
When the mother arrived home and realized her daughter was missing, she checked the girl’s devices and determined that she had been picked up by a Lyft driver. The mother alleged that she called the San Francisco-based company and spoke with several Lyft representatives, who all declined to cancel the ride or otherwise intervene.
Ultimately, the mother found her daughter and brought her home. But the incident has led to “long-lasting and profound emotional and psychological turmoil and anguish” for mother and child, according to the complaint.
Lyft’s “conscious decision to prioritize expansion and revenue over compliance with its own safety policies” led to the “horrific and entirely preventable incident,” the complaint said, alleging that Lyft drivers are penalized for cancelling rides. Drivers who exceed a certain threshold of cancellations risk being deactivated from the program, and drivers, by denying a passenger a ride, risk receiving a low rating, which can hurt their ability to book profitable rides, according to the complaint.
The plaintiff said her daughter suffered “catastrophic and life-altering harm — both physical and psychological” due to the incident.
The teen has since suffered from depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, the complaint alleges. In January 2024, she attempted suicide and spent a week in a psychiatric hospital. She still suffers from nightmares and self-harming behaviors, and requires at least two hours of intensive home-based therapy each week, according to the complaint.
The civil suit asserts that Lyft has violated the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and also accuses the company of gross negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and other counts.
The mother and daughter are seeking an unspecified total in damages.
This incident is the latest involving Lyft to generate headlines in Metro Detroit.
In January 2025, a rapper sued the company, alleging that a driver refused her service based on her weight. In April 2024, a Pontiac man pleaded no contest in the shooting death of a Lyft driver.
mreinhart@detroitnews.com
@max_detroitnews
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Brighton mom sues Lyft, says her daughter was given a ride to a rapist
Reporting by Max Reinhart, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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