Waymo is facing a lawsuit from a tennis instructor alleging one of its robotaxis drove off with $1,000 worth of his tennis equipment in the trunk.
San Francisco resident Daniel Linley alleges the Waymo car’s trunk would not open at the end of his ride on Feb. 7, even after he tapped the “open trunk” button in the app.
“I contacted Waymo to let them know of this problem,” Linley wrote in his small claims court filing. “As I was on the phone with Waymo, the car just drove away with all my expensive tennis equipment.”
According to the suit, filed this past week in San Francisco Superior Court of California, Linley has contacted Waymo numerous times in the weeks between the ride and filing the complaint, seeking for the company to either help retrieve his items or to reimburse him. Waymo, however, has “failed to do so,” he alleges.
“There’s been no concrete conversations about this,” Linley told Gazetteer SF. “It’s more me in touch with them then them in touch with me.”
He said that he filed a lost and found report as the Waymo was driving away. Since then, despite contacting Waymo customer service multiple times, customer service representatives have simply said they will escalate the issue. He’s been in a two-month-long struggle to try to get a straight answer from the company, he said.
On March 3, Linley said a Waymo representative reached out to him, but it was ultimately not helpful and did not resolve the issue.
Linley works as a tennis instructor at the Goldman Tennis Center at Golden Gate Park. He is seeking $1,000 to cover the cost of his lost equipment, plus $11,500 to make up for the loss of income since the incident.
In an emailed statement to Gazetteer SF, a Waymo spokesperson, who declined to be named, said the company is in touch with Linley and is “working to resolve the claim.”
They added, “Waymo’s Support Team operates with the goal of reuniting riders and their forgotten items."
But Linley took issue with Waymo’s use of “forgotten items” in the company’s media statement.
“These were not forgotten items,” he said. “These were items that I had called to get out of the car. I called from the back of the car and then it drove away. If they're going to try and couch this in those terms where I'm at fault, that’s not going to work. They're trying to escape responsibility.”
Waymo has been ramping up operations in San Francisco as of late. In March, Waymo received approval from the city to begin mapping the roads in and around San Francisco International Airport as a first step to offering pickups and drop offs at the airport. Earlier this month, Mayor Daniel Lurie announced Waymo would be allowed to map the car-free parts of Market Street.
