{"id":545361,"date":"2026-07-26T23:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T23:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/545361\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T23:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T23:00:17","slug":"startup-sued-after-delivery-bot-clobbers-73-year-old-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/545361\/","title":{"rendered":"Startup Sued After Delivery Bot Clobbers 73-Year Old Woman"},"content":{"rendered":"

With so many landmark lawsuits<\/a> emerging around artificial intelligence, it can be easy to lose sight of the other high-tech cases shaping the world as we know it.<\/p>\n

One major suit with important implications just emerged out of Phoenix. The case revolves around a 2023 incident involving a 73-year-old named Trudy Perez and a delivery robot<\/a> at Arizona State University. The woman \u2014 who was working as a parking garage attendant at the time \u2014\u00a0alleges a delivery robot operated by the company Starship Technologies repeatedly ran into her, throwing her to the ground and clobbering her again while she was down.<\/p>\n

Now, the woman is proceeding with a civil suit targeting Starship for liability and negligence, local station KJZZ<\/a> reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As if working outdoors in Phoenix at the age of 73 isn’t rough enough, a police report<\/a> from the incident notes Perez suffered a four-inch gash on her arm as a result of the beat-down, in addition to back pain and mobility problems. Per KJZZ, she’s now seeking compensatory damages related to medical expenses, pain and suffering, and lost wages caused by the altercation.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit further alleges that, like similar<\/a> automated<\/a> robots<\/a>, the experimental Starship unit was being piloted by an off-site employee. Per the filing, this unnamed employee neglected to “exercise control” over the delivery bot throughout the incident, resulting in Perez’s injuries.<\/p>\n

Of course, the company is doing everything it can to soften the blow and limit its liability. As KJZZ reports, Starship Technologies has a laundry list of excuses: not only were Perez’s injuries caused by her own negligence, but they were pre-existing as well, the company’s attorneys claim.<\/p>\n

With the first court date set for next February, it’ll be some time before the jury reaches a verdict. When they do, they could set some major precedent when it comes to holding companies responsible for<\/a> mayhem<\/a> caused by their delivery robots \u2014 an increasingly important issue as the gadgets spread to more cities across the US.<\/p>\n

More on delivery robots: Large Area of Chicago Bans Delivery Robots After Resident Outcry<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With so many landmark lawsuits emerging around artificial intelligence, it can be easy to lose sight of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,14260,363,364,267994,16358,267995,111,139,69,267997,267996,145,267993],"class_list":["post-545361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-arizona-state-university","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-delivery-robot","tag-delivery-robots","tag-kjzz","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-parking-garage","tag-starship-technologies","tag-technology","tag-trudy-perez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}