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Indian Woman Sues Uber In the US Over Alleged New Delhi Taxi Rape
"Uber has been the subject of controversy all around the globe," notes new submitter yuetteasvy (3999351), who supplies this story from Reuters about one of the reasons for that controversy: An Indian woman who says she was raped by an Uber driver while she was traveling in his cab in December is suing the San Francisco–based online firm in a U.S. federal court in California, claiming it failed to put in place basic safety procedures while running its car service in India. In her lawsuit, filed on Thursday, the New Delhi woman called the app-based service the "modern day equivalent of electronic hitchhiking." The unidentified plaintiff also calls for Uber to overhaul its safety practices, and seeks unspecified damages in the case, according to Reuters. The news agency quoted Uber as saying that it's "deepest sympathies remain with the victim of this horrific crime." Earlier, the woman was reported to have enlisted the services of Douglas Wigdor, a high-profile U.S. lawyer who represented Nafissatou Diallo, the New York City hotel maid who accused the former International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault. Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney's office went on to drop all charges against Strauss-Kahn, while a civil suit was settled out of court.
Uber is a US company and Uber supplied the drivers hence she definitely has standing to sue.
the lawyer seeks out the victim
if you ever are the victim of a newsworthy accident/ crime, you will get cold called by a number of lawyers, who want to represent you pro bono
because such cases gild their CV, get their name out there. free advertising
some lawyers, they seek out interesting strange and noteworthy cases only. out of ego, fame, crank cause, adrenaline, hero complex, whatever:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G...
etc.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Bullshit. The real problem is that women aren't treated like human beings in India. That is why so many rape cases get dismissed and why it is perfectly legal for a husband to rape his wife there.
It was legal in most Western states until roughly the 1980ies/90ies.
The Soviet Union made it illegal in 1922.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
It is infuriating that people get the facts of this case wrong.
1) It was rape. Period. Medical examinations after the fact confirmed it, and the rapist confessed, not only to raping this woman, but also to raping the woman in 2011, for which he was acquitted.
2) Uber India does NOT perform background checks at all, so they are liable. There can't be specualtion as to the thoroughness of their background check process, becasue there isn't one. They claim to require a commercial permit to drive a taxi, but clearly, they don't verify the validity of such a document, because not only wasn't the rapist permitted to drive local taxis, his permit was forged.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/world/asia/new-delhi-bans-uber-after-driver-is-accused-of-rape.html?_r=0