EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — A newly filed lawsuit in El Paso County accuses Uber Technologies, Inc. and one of its drivers of false imprisonment, assault, and gross negligence after a ride reportedly spiraled into a violent confrontation, leaving a mother and her two young children traumatized.<\/p>\n
According to court filings, plaintiff\u00a0Cynthia Sarabia, acting individually and on behalf of her two minor children, alleges that an Uber driver refused to let the family exit the car, drove recklessly at nearly 90 miles per hour on Interstate 10, and ultimately struck the mother and one of her children during a heated confrontation at a gas station in East El Paso.<\/p>\n
The petition, filed April 1 in the\u00a0205th District Court\u00a0of El Paso County, details what Sarabia\u2019s attorneys describe as a \u201cterrifying sequence of events that escalated into unlawful restraint and physical violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit states that on\u00a0July 29, 2025, Sarabia and her two children entered an Uber ordered by someone else\u2019s account. From the beginning of the trip, Sarabia claims, she noticed that one of the children\u2019s seat belts was broken. When she alerted the driver, he allegedly ignored her and soon began driving erratically, \u201cswerving\u201d and \u201caccelerating to speeds approaching 90 miles per hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite repeated pleas to slow down or stop, the driver allegedly refused. Sarabia asserts that the driver told her the family could not exit \u201cunless she canceled the trip through the Uber app,\u201d effectively trapping them in the moving vehicle. Sarabia says she did not control the Uber account used to book the ride and therefore could not terminate it herself.<\/p>\n
The situation came to a halt when the driver briefly pulled over on the shoulder of I-10, yelling at them to get out in an unsafe location before continuing to drive to a\u00a0Murphy USA gas station on Gateway West Boulevard.<\/p>\n
According to the complaint, the confrontation turned violent: the Uber driver allegedly struck Sarabia and then scratched one of the minor children. Sarabia says she used pepper spray in self-defense before the driver fled, allegedly throwing an unknown liquid at her as he drove off.<\/p>\n
Police responded to the scene, taking statements and recording the family\u2019s account that the driver refused to let them leave and physically attacked them.<\/p>\n
Beyond the driver\u2019s conduct, the lawsuit sharply criticizes\u00a0Uber\u2019s platform design\u00a0and safety protocols, accusing the company of enabling the situation by giving drivers too much control over the passenger’s ability to end trips. <\/p>\n
The petition argues that Uber \u201cfailed to implement reasonable safeguards\u201d to prevent rides from continuing under unsafe conditions and did not offer passengers, particularly those not holding the account, an \u201ceffective, real-time mechanism to immediately terminate a ride and compel a safe stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sarabia\u2019s attorneys further contend that Uber was negligent in\u00a0hiring, retention, training, and supervision, alleging that the company did not properly screen or instruct drivers on how to handle safety complaints, respond to passenger requests to stop, or transport minor children.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also accuses Uber of both\u00a0direct negligence\u00a0and\u00a0vicarious liability, claiming the driver was acting within the scope of Uber\u2019s business and under its operational control via its platform and policies.<\/p>\n
Plaintiffs bring several causes of action, including:<\/p>\n
Assault and battery\u00a0against the driver for striking Sarabia and one child<\/p>\n
False imprisonment\u00a0for allegedly refusing to allow the family to leave<\/p>\n
Negligence and gross negligence\u00a0against both defendants for reckless behavior and failure to ensure passenger safety<\/p>\n
Direct negligence and negligent supervision\u00a0against Uber for unsafe platform design and lack of proper training or intervention protocols<\/p>\n
The family seeks\u00a0more than $1 million in damages, alleging physical injury, emotional trauma, and ongoing anxiety\u2014particularly among the children, who reportedly remain fearful of car rides since the incident. The petition also requests\u00a0exemplary (punitive) damages\u00a0for what the plaintiffs describe as \u201cextreme risk\u201d and \u201cconscious indifference\u201d to passenger safety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) — A newly filed lawsuit in El Paso County accuses Uber Technologies, Inc. and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":239645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139],"class_list":["post-239693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}