A recent court ruling has found Bird, the pioneer of dockless scooters, can’t avoid a personal injury lawsuit as the company is not universally exempt from harm caused by poorly parked scooters.
The ruling doesn’t make Bird unequivocally liable for all accidents involving its scooters and instead says lawsuits can proceed against the company as the facts of an individual case warrant.
In a split decision, the California Court of Appeal overturned a previous ruling by the Los Angeles County Superior Court that had ruled both Bird and the City of Los Angeles were exempt from the case brought by Los Angeles resident Sara Hacala.
According to the court, Hacala and her daughter were walking on a Los Angeles sidewalk just after twilight in 2019. The sidewalk was crowded with holiday shoppers and Hacala did not see the back wheel of a Bird scooter sticking out from behind a trash can. She tripped on the scooter, fell, and sustained serious physical injuries.
Hacala sued but the Superior court ruled in favor of the two defendants who had argued that neither was responsible for the fall. The City of Los Angeles said it was immune to the case as its rules give it discretion over how to enforce scooter permits. The Appeals court agreed and upheld the ruling dismissing all claims against Los Angeles.
Bird’s arguments hinged on the actions of the scooter rider who had improperly parked the vehicle. The company claimed the suit should be dismissed as it was not liable for the actions of third-party riders.
“Bird contends this rule of general application does not apply to plaintiffs’ negligence claims because, in Bird’s telling, Hacala did not suffer her alleged injuries as a result of the company’s conduct,” said the ruling. “Instead, Bird maintains Hacala’s injuries were caused by the conduct of an unidentified third party who, without any urging from Bird, left a Bird scooter behind a trash can in violation of the City’s parking Standards.”
However, the Appeals court disagreed saying the company’s capability to monitor its scooters and its ability to decide who rents them means they can be held accountable.
“While the complaint admits that third-party conduct played an essential role in the set of circumstances that resulted in plaintiffs’ injuries, the complaint plainly does not concede, as Bird’s argument necessarily implies, that third-party conduct was the sole cause of the alleged harm,” said the ruling.
The ruling doesn’t mean Bird was automatically at fault in this specific case, or in every case, but it does revive Hacala’s complaint and allow it to continue in the court system.
“Our rejection of the exemption Bird seeks does not mean that every incident of a pedestrian tripping over a Bird scooter can result in negligence liability,” said the ruling. “On the contrary, whether the duty of ordinary care has been breached depends on the particular circumstances, including those aggravating or mitigating the risk created, and those justifying Bird’s conduct in response. Nothing that Bird has argued suggests a jury cannot be trusted to weigh these considerations under the particular facts of this case, just as juries do in deciding negligence generally.”
Attorney Catherine Lerer, who represented Hacala, said the ruling was a strong protection for those injured by scooters and a warning to any shared mobility company that they can be taken to court if their devices cause accidents.
“The appellate court got it right: Bird must pick up its poop,” she said in a statement.
Travis VanderZanden launched Bird as a Santa Monica-based company in 2017. He came to the scooter industry from Uber and said at the time he always had a passion for transit going back to his mother’s job as a bus driver.
The company earned a checkered reputation for its approach to local regulations but experienced explosive growth for several years becoming the fastest company to reach a Silicon Valley valuation of a billion dollars. Bird expanded its devices throughout the country and into several international markets before the pandemic struck.
The company attempted to evolve its business model several times. Bird offered a franchise system to encourage small entrepreneurs to operate their own scooter systems using Bird technology but that effort was criticized for saddling franchisees with massive debt. It also pivoted to retail with the sale of Bird branded bikes/scooters.
Its core business of short-distance scooter rental also experienced turbulence as local municipalities began regulating the devices. Locally, Bird was kicked out of Santa Monica in 2021 when the City revised its pilot program allowing scooters to operate on local streets. The company was narrowly included in the initial program but was eliminated in the second round due to low scores for affordability, customer service, safety, and sustainability.
VanderZanden stepped down as Bird’s President in 2022 following a precipitous decline in the company’s stock value and relocation of the company’s headquarters from Los Angeles to Miami.