Lawsuit filed against Uber after SC driver unloads racist rant on two Black women
Jovene Milligan, a Black woman from Charleston, reached for the gun in her purse during an Uber ride on Friday from Aiken to Columbia. She prayed that she would not have to use it.
Moments before, Milligan claims in a lawsuit, the Uber driver known only to them as “Daniel” in his profile had asked her and her daughter where they came from after declaring his heritage hailed from Great Britain. When the women referred to themselves as African Queens, the driver launched into a racist diatribe, where he repeatedly called them the N-word. It was captured on video clips the women filmed during their ride.
The driver then began speeding and swerving on Interstate 20.
With one of her hands resting on the gun, Milligan remembers telling her 30-year-old daughter, Ghiana Gardner, “This could go bad. So just be prepared.” Then, they closed their eyes and began to pray.
On Monday, Milligan and Gardner filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court against both the driver and Uber after their 59-mile trip the Friday before Mother’s Day weekend left them fearing for their lives.
A request seeking comment from Uber was not immediately returned.
The women are seeking a minimum of $5 million each in damages and are suing the ride-sharing company for negligent hiring, as well as the driver for assault, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other charges.
“It was traumatic. It still is traumatic. I’m literally waking up every morning just crying because I just think about all the different ways it could have went,” Milligan, 52, said in an interview Tuesday morning.
Milligan, who is originally from Charleston but now lives in Atlanta, said she and her daughter were driving from Atlanta to Charleston for Mother’s Day weekend with family when their car broke down in Aiken. When they called AAA, a tow truck driver told them they could not ride with him to the dealership due to COVID-19 protocols.
That’s when Gardner called an Uber.
At first, the driver seemed safe to Gardner and her mom, they said. Screenshots of the Uber driver’s profile, which were provided to The State along with video footage of the driver’s outbursts, show “Daniel” passed a multi-step safety screening and has made nearly 7,000 trips since he began driving for Uber five and a half years ago.
The driver also boasted a 4.89 star rating out of a maximum 5 stars on his profile. Excellent service and great conversation were among the compliments he had received.
But when Milligan and Gardner asked multiple times to be let out of the vehicle, the lawsuit states the driver repeatedly refused.
When he dropped them off at the Jaguar dealership in Columbia, the suit claims the driver threw their bags out of his Volkswagen Passat and then yelled, “You (N-words) aren’t welcome in Aiken!”
The driver, who is white, also referred to himself as an N-word during the trip. In videos shared with The State, the driver at one point says all Black riders must refer to him as “the Uber Goober,” whereas all white passengers call him “Uber Dan.”
Attorney Sean Wilson of Charleston is representing Milligan and Gardner. Wilson said the goal of the lawsuit is to encourage Uber to implement more safety protocols that protect passengers.
“We want to make sure this doesn’t happen to anybody else. People deserve to be respected and get to their destination safely,” Wilson said.
Milligan said the ride has left her shaken. She works for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia as an administrative assistant.
The lawsuit, she said, isn’t about the money. What she wants is for Uber to address what she sees as a glaring omission in safety for its riders. It wasn’t until after the ride, she said, that she could report what was happening inside the vehicle.
An incident report has also been filed with the Lexington County Sheriff’s Office, Wilson said.
“This guy should not be driving. I work in law enforcement. If someone wants to volunteer at the jail, they have to have extensive background check just to visit an inmate,” Milligan said. “Just as Uber drivers have to have insurance on their vehicles, there needs to be another prerequisite for safety, like a camera installed in every vehicle.”
Currently, all Uber rides are tracked by GPS from start to finish and can be shared with others. Users can also call the police directly from the app. However,Milligan’s daughter was the one who called the Uber. As the ride progressed, Gardner’s phone began to die, her mother said.
Milligan said having a camera in the vehicle would cause drivers to behave differently if they know their actions are being recorded, comparing it to the implementation of police body cameras.
According to the lawsuit, both Milligan and Gardner have suffered loss of sleep, anxiety, fear, outrage, inability to concentrate and other symptoms since the incident.
