Damaged teeth, torn muscles, and broken fingers: A California lawsuit accuses e-scooter startups of causing 'civil unrest'
- At least nine people injured by e-scooters have filed a lawsuit in California against Lime, Bird, Segway and other operators.
- The plaintiffs - some of whom have required surgery after their injuries - don't necessarily want to ban scooters, but want the companies held responsible.
- Bird and Lime pushed back against the lawsuit, saying their scooters are still safer than cars.
Add another item to the growing list of anti-scooter backlash.
A lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles accuses scooter operators Lime and Bird, along with China's Xiaomi and Segway, of causing a public health crisis by launching its scooters in public places across California.
"While acting under the guise of commendable goals of furthering personal freedom and mobility and protecting the environment," the lawsuit claims, companies are "endangering the health, safety, and welfare of riders, pedestrians and the general public."
One of the nine named victims of the class action suit, Lorenzo Borgia, ended up with eight damaged teeth and stitches in his lip after the rider of a Lime scooter crashed into him in July. Another plaintiff, David Peterson, who performs on the Venice Boardwalk as 'Davy Rocks,' claims he had to get surgery for a torn bicep tendon after a Bird rider crashed into him in June.
"I don't hate the scooters or people who ride the scooters," Peterson said in another, more recent Instagram post. "Everyone just needs to follow the rules and be safe when they ride and the scooter companies need to be help responsible for the damage that they cause to people."
The suit goes on to blame the thousands of scooters that companies have "dumped" in localities - sometimes without permission - to get the service up and running.
"In 'dumping' thousands of Scooters onto our streets, sidewalks, and other Public Places within a very short period of time, without any significant, reasonable or appropriate warning to or approval by public authorities, the Scooter Defendants, and each of them, have acted in a grossly negligent manner and outrageously, maliciously, fraudulently and oppressively and/or with a conscious disregard for the health, safety and welfare," the lawsuit says.
Both Lime and Bird pushed back against the lawsuit, according to the Washington Post, with both companies pointing towards their goals of making transportation more safe and more energy efficient.
"Class action attorneys with a real interest in improving transportation safety should be focused on reducing the 40,000 deaths caused by cars every year in the U.S.," a Bird spokesperson told Business Insider. "Shared e-scooters are already replacing millions of short car trips and the pollution that comes with them, and we at Bird will continue to work with cities to help them redesign their transportation networks so that they are safer and cleaner."
Business Insider has reached out to the other three companies named in the suit and will update this post if more comments are received.
Catherine Lerer, an attorney representing the plaintiffs in the suit, has also filed a similar lawsuit in Colorado. She told the Washington Post that she has received "more than 100 calls from people injured by scooters" in recent months. In the suit, plaintiffs claim the onslaught of scooters has cause "civil unrest" throughout California.
"Deployment of the scooters throughout the Public Places of California has caused civil unrest with individuals throwing the scooters into trashcans, dumpsters, the Venice Canals and the Pacific Ocean," the suit reads. "In addition to lighting the scooters on fire (which, due to their batteries can cause explosions) and burying them into the sand of California's beaches."