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

Background

The plaintiffs were Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco, Community Resources for Independent Living, Judith Smith, Julie Fuller, Sascha Bittner, and Tara Ayres. The four individual plaintiffs use motorized wheelchairs and live in the Bay Area; the two organizations represent Bay Area wheelchair users. Lyft operates an app-based transportation service.

The plaintiffs brought claims under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which prohibits disability discrimination by covered businesses. Their case focused on Lyft’s failure to offer wheelchair-accessible vehicle service, called “WAV” or “access mode,” in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. Lyft offered that service in San Francisco, while its standard service accommodated foldable wheelchairs but not motorized wheelchairs. The plaintiffs sought injunctive and declaratory relief in a proposed class action.

The court had previously denied class certification. It also previously denied Lyft’s motion for summary judgment and granted in part and denied in part the plaintiffs’ summary-judgment motion, concluding that a trial was needed to decide whether the proposed changes were reasonable. At trial, the plaintiffs abandoned their separate claim under the ADA provision requiring an equivalent level of service and proceeded only on their claim that Lyft failed to make a reasonable modification.

The proposed modification and evidence

The plaintiffs did not ask the court to require one fully specified operating plan. Instead, they proposed that Lyft meet certain wheelchair-service wait-time benchmarks and use an iterative process—trial and error involving vehicle numbers, vehicle placement, driver incentives, and dispatch methods—to determine how to meet those benchmarks.

The plaintiffs also relied on Lyft’s internal “65+5” proposal. That proposal contemplated 65 rental WAVs and five partner-operated WAVs serving San Francisco, Alameda County, and Contra Costa County. Lyft had estimated an initial annual cost of $2.8 million, but the proposal was never adopted, and its proposed rental partner, Hertz, later entered bankruptcy.

The court found that Lyft’s rental model was unreliable because rental drivers generally spent little time providing WAV rides and switched to standard rides when WAV demand was low. The court found that a 15-vehicle partner program, rather than the proposed five partner vehicles, would be needed to reliably meet the California Public Utilities Commission’s applicable offset benchmarks. The court found that this program would cost about $5.4 million per year, or about $6.4 million if combined with the rental vehicles. The plaintiffs’ proposed, more demanding exemption-level wait-time standards would cost even more.

The court also found that Lyft could not reliably count on reimbursements from the California Public Utilities Commission’s Access Fund. Among other requirements, the reimbursement program required quarter-over-quarter improvement in wait times, which the court found could not be sustained. The court further found that comparisons to New York City and nationwide data did not reliably establish that the proposal would work in the Bay Area.

Legal analysis

The ADA requires a covered transportation business to make reasonable modifications to its policies, practices, or procedures when necessary to provide its services to people with disabilities, unless the modification would fundamentally alter the nature of the services. The court had already determined that Lyft was covered, that the individual plaintiffs were disabled under the ADA, that they had requested a modification, and that the requested change appeared necessary. The court declined to revisit the defense that the change would fundamentally alter Lyft’s business, finding that WAV service was not a new transportation service because Lyft already provided it in some locations.

The court held that an ADA plaintiff seeking a reasonable modification must propose a concrete modification, rather than merely ask the defendant to experiment until it finds one. The proposal need not specify every detail, but it must provide enough information for a fact finder to assess whether it is reasonable. The court held that the plaintiffs’ performance standards and proposed trial-and-error process were not concrete modifications.

The court alternatively found that the proposed change was unreasonable because of its cost and administrative burden. Depending on the assumptions used, the court calculated costs ranging from $622 to $2,500 per ride, and found those amounts excessive. It also found that administering the service would require substantial work, including monitoring regulatory benchmarks and recruiting and managing drivers willing to rent WAVs and drive in WAV mode. Because the proposal was unreasonable on these grounds, the court did not decide whether it would be effective.

Disposition

The court concluded that the plaintiffs had not proved that Lyft discriminated against disabled individuals in violation of the ADA. It denied relief, denied Lyft’s Rule 52(c) motion as moot, and entered judgment in favor of Lyft.