Things like you described do happen. Often they are beyond the control of the company for whom the employee works. I ran a company which did fairly aggressive background checks to avoid the kind of tragedy you described, but in spite of that creeps get through the system. And one got through our system during the four years I ran this company.
We heard about the incident from another employee. We investigated the incident and determined our employee had committed the horrible offense that he was accused of committing. We took all the steps we could to remedy a bad situation including calling in law enforcement on our employee and having him arrested and notifying the family before they were even aware of what happened (in this case it was an “adult child” and our response time was less than 24 hours). The family was incredibly understanding and appreciative of what we had done, we could not fix what happened, but we could play a part to prevent it happening again and repairing the damage as much as possible.
At another company I ran which included hundreds of physicians we had a very simple policy. If a physician made a mistake, they were expected to self report. Failure to self report resulted in instant termination, when we eventually heard from the harmed patient (usually through a malpractice lawsuit being filed).
Our normal process if a physician made a mistake was to investigate it and in the event we determined we were indeed guilty of malpractice, we offered the victim compensation often before they had engaged an attorney. Less this sound nefarious, the State of Florida has a pretty defined process for evaluating the financial value of a malpractice claim, we used that formula not some arbitrary system. Rarely did anyone get greater compensation than we offered if they chose to go to court.
Based on industry statistics our overall malpractice costs were far below the average for the specialties we had. Why? It costs a lot of money defending cases in which you are guilty on top of ruining your reputation as an honorable company that can be trusted to do the right thing. It also means when you decide to fight a case, you have a reputation for doing the right thing.
Lyft should have put as many resources as necessary to determine if the event occurred. Given today’s GPS systems, they should have been able to track the car or your cell phone (with your permission). Even if the company did nothing wrong they are at fault and they should own it. When someone is working for your company, the company is at fault. The goal should not be to avoid liability, but to do the right thing. Companies carry insurance because bad things happen. I am disgusted to hear that Lyft has behaved as they have.
Now for your part, as a father of four daughters, I understand how hard it might be after an event like you experienced to go to a hospital and have them do a post rape examination including collecting whatever DNA evidence there is to prosecute the rapist. You made the right decision, but probably to late. The two day window and most likely several showers destroyed the evidence. No matter how hard it is, it is important and I hope anyone reading this goes immediately to an ER and gets an examination.
In the situation you described it is often your word against someone else’s and the more evidence you have to corroborate your description, the better chance that asshole is likely to see the inside of jail for years. Justice without evidence is difficult. In addition, write down as soon as you can as much as many detail as you can remember, it is important for justice and to avoid future victims. Time blurs memories.
I appreciate you suing Lyft. If they are found guilty and the evidence supports your allegation in my mind the executives of that company should resign, if they did not deploy the necessary resources to come to a definitive determination as to what happened. Failure in my mind is gross negligence. When a company gets away with failing to do the right thing, they perpetuate a problem which will eventually cause the company even greater harm and in the shorter term will leave a trail of victims.
