TENTATIVE RULING

Defendant Lyft, Inc.’s Demurrer to Plaintiff’s Complaint is SUSTAINED with thirty (30) days leave to amend as to the first cause of action for negligence and SUSTAINED without leave to amend as to the second cause of action for failure to provide a safe place of employment in violation of Labor Code sections 6400 through 6404.

Plaintiff Taron Sargsyan may amend his complaint only as authorized by the Court’s order and may not amend the complaint to add a new party or cause of action without having obtained permission to do so. (Harris v. Wachovia Mortgage, FSB (2010) 185 Cal.App.4th 1018, 1023.)

Defendant Lyft, Inc. to give notice. 

REASONING

Request for Judicial Notice

Defendant Lyft, Inc. (“Defendant”) requests judicial notice of Plaintiff Taron Sargsyan (“Plaintiff”)’s complaint. Defendant’s request is GRANTED pursuant to Evidence Code section 452, subdivision (d).

Legal Standard

“[A] demurrer tests the legal sufficiency of the allegations in a complaint.” (Lewis v. Safeway, Inc. (2015) 235 Cal.App.4th 385, 388.) A demurrer can be used only to challenge defects that appear on the face of the pleading under attack or from matters outside the pleading that are judicially noticeable. (See Donabedian v. Mercury Ins. Co. (2004) 116 Cal.App.4th 968, 994 [in ruling on a demurrer, a court may not consider declarations, matters not subject to judicial notice, or documents not accepted for the truth of their contents].) For purposes of ruling on a demurrer, all facts pleaded in a complaint are assumed to be true (Aubry v. Tri-City Hosp. Dist. (1992) 2 Cal.4th 962, 967), but the Court does not “assume the truth of contentions, deductions, or conclusions of fact or law” (Moore v. Regents of University of California (1990) 51 Cal.3d 120, 125).

Leave to amend must be allowed where there is a reasonable possibility of successful amendment. (See Goodman v. Kennedy (1976) 18 Cal.3d 335, 349 [court shall not “sustain a demurrer without leave to amend if there is any reasonable possibility that the defect can be cured by amendment”]; Kong v. City of Hawaiian Gardens Redevelopment Agency (2002) 108 Cal.App.4th 1028, 1037 [“A demurrer should not be sustained without leave to amend if the complaint, liberally construed, can state a cause of action under any theory or if there is a reasonable possibility the defect can be cured by amendment.”]; Vaccaro v. Kaiman (1998) 63 Cal.App.4th 761, 768 [“When the defect which justifies striking a complaint is capable of cure, the court should allow leave to amend.”].) The burden is on the complainant to show the Court that a pleading can be amended successfully. (Blank v. Kirwan (1985) 39 Cal.3d 311, 318.)

First Cause of Action: Negligence

To state a claim for negligence, Plaintiff must allege the elements of (1) “the existence of a legal duty of care,” (2) “breach of that duty,” and (3) “proximate cause resulting in an injury.” (McIntyre v. Colonies-Pacific, LLC (2014) 228 Cal.App.4th 664, 671.)

In the first cause of action, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant has a special relationship with ride share drivers like Plaintiff, and Defendant owed a duty of care to Plaintiff because it provides transportation to the general public. (Compl. ¶¶ 12-13.) The Court understands Plaintiff’s claim as alleging that Defendant failed to prevent the criminal activity of third parties. “In general, each person has a duty to act with reasonable care under the circumstances. However, one owes no duty to control the conduct of another, nor to warn those endangered by such conduct. A person who has not created a peril is not liable in tort merely for failure to take affirmative action to assist or protect another unless there is some relationship between them which gives rise to a duty to act.” (Regents of University of California v. Superior Court (2018) 4 Cal.5th 607, 619, quotation marks and citations omitted.)

In this action, Plaintiff alleges criminal conduct by two third-party individuals who attacked him while he waited for a passenger ride request. “[I]n the case of criminal conduct by a third party, an extraordinarily high degree of foreseeability is required to impose a duty . . . , in part because it is difficult if not impossible in today's society to predict when a criminal might strike.” (Garcia v. Paramount Citrus Assocation, Inc. (2008) 164 Cal.App.4th 1448, 1457, quotation marks and italics omitted; see also Hanouchian v. Steele (2020) 51 Cal.App.5th 99, 111 [“To establish heightened foreseeability for third party criminal conduct, our authorities have consistently required actual knowledge—not constructive, inferential, or knowledge by association—to impose a burdensome legal duty”].) Here, Plaintiff does not allege that Defendant have knowledge that Plaintiff would be attacked, that Plaintiff was in an area he was likely to be attacked, that the individuals were somehow connected to Defendant, or that the third parties’ conduct was a “necessary component” or even related to Defendant’s business model (Jane Doe No. 1 v. Uber Technologies, Inc. (2022) 79 Cal.App.5th 410, 427). As currently alleged, there is no basis for the trier of fact to conclude that Defendant could be liable for offensive conduct by third parties who were entirely unrelated to Defendant.

While the Court lacks a basis to conclude that Plaintiff can successfully cure the deficiencies of this claim to state a claim for negligence, the Court will allow Plaintiff the opportunity to state a claim given this is the first demurrer in this action. Accordingly, Defendant’s demurrer is SUSTAINED with thirty (30) days leave to amend as to the first cause of action.

Second Cause of Action: Statutory Liability for Failure to Provide a Safe Place of Employment

Labor Code sections 6400 through 6404 provide that employers are required to provide a place for employment that is safe and healthful for employees and may not maintain any workplace that is unsafe for employees. Plaintiff alleges that Defendant failed to comply with these provisions, causing his harm. (Compl. ¶¶ 23-24.) Notably, simply pleading that Defendant is subject to these statutory provisions does not make it so, as Plaintiff appears to argue. Rather, the Court lacks a basis to conclude that any of the cited provisions allow for a private cause of action to be brought by a person alleging violations of the duties set forth in the statutes, and if such a right did exist, which the Court finds it does not, the claim would be duplicative of Plaintiff’s negligence claim, as Plaintiff alleges in both claims that he was subjected to assault and battery because of his presence in an unsafe work location. For these reasons, Defendant’s demurrer to the second cause of action is SUSTAINED without leave to amend, as the Court lacks a basis to conclude that amendment could cure these deficiencies.