The mother of an Uber driver who police said was killed by a passenger nearly two years ago filed a federal lawsuit Thursday alleging that the tech company should have been better able to protect her.
“Despite Uber knowing that its drivers — essential players in the wildly profitable Uber enterprise — are at high risk of violent attacks by passengers, Uber abdicated its duty to protect its drivers from that known and foreseeable risk by failing to implement simple, available and effective safety measures,” the lawsuit said.
Uber did not immediately return a request for comment.
Cindy Spicuzza, the administrator of her daughter’s estate, is seeking claims for wrongful death and negligence.
Christina Spicuzza, 38, of Turtle Creek, was killed on Feb. 10, 2022. Her body was found two days later, and police have charged Calvin Crew, 24, of Pitcairn, in connection with the killing.
Court dockets show his trial is scheduled for January. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
The federal lawsuit alleges that Crew used his girlfriend’s Uber account to order the car that night and take him from his home in Pitcairn to Penn Hills. Police said Crew’s girlfriend requested the Uber just before 9 p.m. and paid using her Apple Pay account.
Spicuzza picked up Crew around 9:15 p.m., police said. About 15 minutes later, as she neared the drop-off location, police said Crew took out a handgun, grabbed Spicuzza’s hair and held the gun to the back of her head.
Although she begged for her life, Crew continued to threaten her, forcing her to continue driving, police said.
He then forced her to stop in a wooded area along Rosecrest Drive in Monroeville, where police said he shot and killed her.
The federal lawsuit alleges that Uber touts its sophisticated technology to “screen out potentially violent or dangerous drivers from offering rides,” but “failed to employ basic identity-verification technology to screen out the customer who murdered Ms. Spicuzza.”
“Moreover, Uber discourages its drivers from using their own judgment to avoid potentially unsafe situations by penalizing them for failing to accept rides,” the lawsuit said.
Spicuzza, a mother of four, had been driving for Uber for about a year when she was killed, often working four to five days each week.
“Uber’s apathy towards the safety of its drivers created the opportunity for Ms. Spicuzza’s murder, leading to the untimely loss of her life, and forcing her long-term life partner and fiancé to explain to their young children why their mother was never coming home again,” the lawsuit said.
The complaint said Uber knew of the potential dangers to their drivers, noting that 16 Uber drivers were murdered in Brazil in 2016.
The lawsuit also cites a report from Gig Workers Rising which said that, since 2017, at least 50 app-based drivers have been killed on the job in the United States, including 25 for Uber.
Additionally, the complaint said that in 2021, 124 ride-share drivers were carjacked and 11 of them were killed.
“Sadly, the news is replete with stories of Uber drivers being robbed and/or murdered by violent passengers,” the lawsuit said. “And yet, Uber has not taken sufficient action to protect its drivers from dangerous passengers.”
The complaint alleges that Uber fails to take reasonable steps to protect its drivers, including installing physical barriers or using technology to screen passengers or verify their identity.
Although there is an emergency button for drivers in the Uber app they use, the lawsuit said it takes several steps to activate it, making it unclear if it is faster than simply dialing 911.
The law noted that if the phone displays on the car’s dashboard, as it did in Spicuzza’s case, a violent passenger can simply take it from the driver.
In Crew’s case, the lawsuit said he had a history of violent, firearms-related crimes, including an adjudication when he was 14 in juvenile court for robbery and theft.
In September 2021, the lawsuit said, Crew attempted to buy a firearm and lied about his previous conviction to do so. An arrest warrant was issued for unsworn falsification and for attempting to buy a firearm illegally.
The warrant was still pending when Spicuzza was killed.
Uber puts its drivers at risk, the lawsuit said, by protecting passengers’ anonymity and giving drivers as little information about who they are picking up as possible.
Drivers do not receive their passengers’ photo or full name, and therefore have no way to verify the person who requested the ride is who they are picking up, the complaint said.
“If Uber had properly equipped Ms. Spicuzza with passenger verification data, she could have been alerted that Mr. Crew was not the requesting rider and that he had a criminal history,” the complaint said.
“Had Uber applied its driver background check procedures to passengers, used its massive data analysis capabilities to screen out dangerous passengers, permitted drivers to cancel suspicious fares without penalty, or simply provided basic safety features in Ms. Spicuzza’s Uber-approved rental car, these simple and effective measures — all readily available to Uber — could have saved Ms. Spicuzza’s life,” the lawsuit said.
Paula Reed Ward is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Paula by email at pward@triblive.com or via Twitter .
