Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco v. Lyft, Inc.

Background

The plaintiffs filed a renewed motion asking the court to certify a class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2). Their proposed class covered individuals who use wheelchair-accessible vehicles because of a mobility disability and who had been or would be denied access to Lyft’s on-demand transportation service in San Francisco, Alameda County, or Contra Costa County because Lyft lacked available wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

The court noted that this was the second round of class-certification motions. It said the proposed definitions had been convoluted and difficult to apply. The court also focused on Lyft’s class-action waiver and agreement to binding arbitration. Plaintiffs’ counsel had proposed excluding people who downloaded the Lyft app because those users would be subject to those provisions.

Reasons for Denial

The court stated that Lyft had presented evidence of, at least facially, a valid and enforceable arbitration provision and class-action waiver that other courts had upheld. Although the court recognized that an arbitrator may decide arbitrability when an agreement clearly and unmistakably delegates that question, it concluded that certifying a class containing people who downloaded the app would create prolonged disputes about which class members were subject to the waiver.

The court then considered whether the class could be defined to avoid that issue. It found that the plaintiffs’ proposed definition assumed facts that would have to be proven on the merits—specifically, whether a person had been denied service because of a lack of available wheelchair-accessible vehicles.

The court also found that the proposed class did not satisfy the numerosity requirement. Numerosity requires showing that the class is so large that joining all members in one lawsuit would be impractical. The plaintiffs submitted census data indicating that 29,500 people in the Bay Area used mobility devices, along with declarations from 25 potential class members. But after excluding people who had downloaded the app, many thousands of people who used wheelchairs might still be outside the class because they lacked money for Lyft rides, did not own a smartphone, or preferred other transportation. The court said it could not determine with reasonable assurance which of those people had been denied Lyft service because accessible vehicles were unavailable and which had not used Lyft for other reasons.

Disposition

The court denied the renewed motion for class certification. It stated that, because Lyft continued to oppose certification, only the named plaintiffs would be bound by the eventual merits outcome, while other individuals would remain free to sue individually on the same issues. The court also stated that counsel should not attempt to settle with the individual plaintiffs on a class-wide basis after Lyft had declined the opportunity to seek class-wide preclusion.