What claims exist against a rideshare company and its driver is set out on the rideshare page.
This article is about something more immediate. A survivor may not be able to give a full name, an address, a workplace, or a vehicle she could pick out again. That feels like having no case.
Not knowing the driver's name is not the end of the inquiry. What can be done with it depends on what the company holds, which is why the screenshots taken tonight matter.
Do this first, tonight if you can
Screenshot the trip in the app. The receipt, the map, the driver's name and photo, the vehicle and plate, and the times. Do it before anything changes on your side of the app.
Save any confirmation or receipt email. If one arrived, it sits in your own inbox independently of the app.
Do not delete the app, and do not delete the trip.
Write down the exact date, the time you were picked up, the time you got out, where you were picked up, and where you actually ended up.
Keep anything you sent anyone that night. A text to a friend with a time stamp on it is a contemporaneous record, and it is already yours.
What the app shows you is the part you can capture without anyone's permission, which is why it is worth capturing now.
What to ask the company for later
Nothing below is a promise that a particular record exists or is retained. These are the categories a lawyer asks a rideshare company about, and each is a question with an answer the company can give.
What, if anything, the company recorded about the trip: pickup and drop-off, the route actually driven, timestamps, any deviation, when and where the trip was ended.
What, if anything, it recorded about the account and the payment.
Communications that ran through the platform rather than between phones, including in-app messages and calls, and anything either side wrote afterward, including ratings and comments.
What, if anything, it holds about the driver's onboarding and screening: what was checked, by whom, when, and what came back.
Any prior complaints about the same driver from other riders, and what the company did with them. Those go to what the company knew before your trip, which is why they are worth asking about early.
Any deactivation or reactivation history, and any safety report made about that driver before your trip.
How long any of it is kept is a question for the company, not something this page will assume.
The argument you should expect
You should expect an argument that the driver was an independent contractor rather than an employee, and that this affects what the company is responsible for.
Whether and how that argument succeeds against a particular claim in Texas is a contested legal question this article will not resolve. Whether a claim can be framed around what the company itself did, as distinct from what the driver did, is likewise a legal question for the specific facts.
What is worth knowing is that the contractor argument is not a reason to stop asking questions, and it is not an answer you should accept from anyone who is not your own lawyer.
Where trafficking is involved
Section 98.002(a) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code makes liable a defendant who engages in the trafficking of persons "or who intentionally or knowingly benefits from participating in a venture that traffics another person." Section 98.002(b) provides that it is not a defense that a defendant "has been acquitted or has not been prosecuted or convicted under Chapter 20A, Penal Code." Section 98.005 provides for joint liability for the entire amount of damages arising from the trafficking, and Section 98.003 makes court costs and reasonable attorney's fees part of what a prevailing claimant is awarded. The firm's page is human trafficking civil claims.
Reporting
Reporting inside the app is likely to create a record on the company's side, and that may be useful. It also puts the company on notice, which can prompt it to begin its own internal handling of the matter before you have counsel. That is the consequence, and it is the reason the timing is worth a conversation.
If you are unsure whether to report, put that question to a lawyer the same day rather than the same week. It is not a reason to sit on it.
A police report is not required for a civil claim, and that is covered in do I have to report to the police. What else to preserve is on the evidence page.
The clock
A negligence claim carries two years under Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Claims arising from the specific offenses listed in Section 16.0045 carry thirty years or five, depending on the conduct. Which period reaches which defendant depends on the conduct alleged against that defendant, and more than one can be running at once in the same case. That is a calculation on your dates. What affects those periods is in what stops the clock.
The company's records are obtained through the legal process, and that starts with a lawyer writing to the company. There is no charge for that conversation and no attorney's fee unless there is a recovery.
Call 713-521-0059.
Authorities
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 98 (trafficking)
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 16 (limitations)
This article is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.