Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / Family Sues DoorDash After "Unvetted" Driver Kills College Student in Hit-and-Run

Transcript

Family Sues DoorDash After "Unvetted" Driver Kills College Student in Hit-and-Run · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to just for a second visualize a graph, okay,
• 0:03
  And on this graph there are two lines, two lines
• 0:06
  that represent two completely different human lives. And you know,
• 0:11
  in any kind of rational, just world, these two lines
• 0:14
  they should stay parallel, they should never ever intersect, right.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Because they're on completely different trajectories. They represent two totally
• 0:20
  separate worlds exactly.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: So you've got the first line, and it's this upward trajectory.
• 0:25
  That's Elsa McGrain. She's twenty years old, a student at
• 0:28
  the University of Kansas. She's bright, she's ambitious, and she's
• 0:32
  driven by this incredibly specific, just noble purpose. She's pre med.
• 0:37
  But it's not even just pre med. She had her
• 0:39
  site set on becoming a pediatric oncologist.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: Which is, I mean, frankly, one of the most difficult
• 0:44
  and emotionally taxing fields in all of medicine. You're not
• 0:48
  just dealing with the science of it, you're dealing with
• 0:50
  the suffering of children. To choose that path at twenty
• 0:53
  years old, that says so much about who a person is.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: It says she was one of the good ones, the
• 0:59
  best of us, really, Yeah, dedicated to healing. And then
• 1:04
  then you have the second.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Line, it's the downward spiral.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: The downward spiral. This line represents a man named William
• 1:10
  Ray Klingler.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: And this trajectory is defined by well, a history of
• 1:14
  substance abuse, repeated failures to follow the law. It's a
• 1:18
  record that just reads like a giant warning sign that
• 1:20
  everybody ignored. We're talking a repeat offender with a suspended license,
• 1:24
  pending drug charges, and a long history of getting behind
• 1:27
  the wheel when he absolutely, unequivocally should not have been.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: And these two lines, the healer and the hazard, they collided.
• 1:35
  They intersected on the evening of November sixth, twenty twenty five.
• 1:39
  It happened on this rural road just outside Lawrence, Kansas.
• 1:43
  And when it first looked like a just a heartbreaking
• 1:46
  local tragedy, a hit and run that took ELS's life,
• 1:50
  it's now spiraled into something much, much bigger.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It really has. As of just last week, February fourth,
• 1:55
  twenty twenty six, this story completely shifted gears. It's not
• 1:59
  just a criminal case again against one driver anymore. It's
• 2:01
  become a national flashpoint on corporate accountability. A wrongful death
• 2:05
  lawsuit was filed, and the defendant isn't just the man
• 2:08
  behind the wheel.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: It's Doordas, this is DoorDash, and that right there is
• 2:13
  the mission of this deep dive. We're going to sift
• 2:15
  through the police reports, the court filings, this explosive new
• 2:20
  lawsuit to answer a really core question. And I have
• 2:23
  to be honest, this is the question that keeps me
• 2:25
  up at night. How does a driver with a suspended license,
• 2:30
  multiple DUIs, pending charges for methamphetamine possession, how does he
• 2:35
  end up allegedly delivering food for one of the biggest,
• 2:39
  most sophisticated tech platforms on the planet.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: It's a question of systemic failure. And to really get
• 2:44
  an answer you have to look at the whole picture.
• 2:46
  We need to first honor the life and legacy of
• 2:48
  Elsama Green. We have to absolutely Then we have to
• 2:51
  look at the criminal history of the accused, William Ray Klingler.
• 2:53
  But then we have to pivot. We have to pivot
• 2:55
  to the actual mechanics of the gig economy. We need
• 2:58
  to understand the how how do these unvetted drivers slip
• 3:02
  right through the digital cracks.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: It's a loophole that you know, some might argue as
• 3:06
  a feature, not a bug.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: So let's unpack this, and I think we absolutely have
• 3:09
  to start with Elsa because in these massive legal battles,
• 3:13
  you know, when you start throwing around terms like corporate
• 3:16
  liability and negligence and damages, the human being at the
• 3:20
  center of it can get buried under all that legal jargon.
• 3:24
  But the sources, we have, the statements from her friends,
• 3:27
  the famili's tributes, They paint such a vivid picture of
• 3:30
  who was lost.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: She was not just a statistic in a traffic report. Also,
• 3:34
  was twenty years old, a junior at KU And you
• 3:37
  mentioned that pediatric oncology goal. I just want to sit
• 3:40
  with that for a second. That is that is not
• 3:42
  a casual ambition for twenty year old.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: No, it's not. Most people that age are still, you know,
• 3:45
  trying to figure out their major, let alone dedicating their
• 3:48
  entire life's purpose to curing childhood cancer. It speaks to
• 3:52
  a level of empathy and frankly grit that is just
• 3:54
  so rare. The sources described her as having a servant's heart.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Her friends, her roommate, They described her as everything, just everything,
• 4:03
  full of light, kind, devoted. She was the house manager
• 4:06
  for her sorority, chi Omega. And I know sometimes people
• 4:09
  hear sorority and a certain image comes to mind. But
• 4:11
  being a house manager, that is a serious job.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Oh, it is. You are basically the facilities manager for
• 4:17
  a large residence with what dozens of young women. You're
• 4:21
  dealing with logistics, safety, conflicts, rules. It requires you to
• 4:25
  be the adult in the room. It just shows she
• 4:27
  was responsible and trusted by her peers to keep them safe.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: She was also really active in the Salt Company, which
• 4:32
  is a Christian ministry there on campus. Her parents, Jordan
• 4:36
  and Anna McGrain, they released a statement that was just
• 4:39
  gut wrenching. They said Elsa spent every waking moment serving
• 4:43
  other people.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: And she was a recreational soccer player too, So she
• 4:46
  was active, she was healthy, she was doing everything right.
• 4:48
  She was building this life that was going to contribute
• 4:50
  so much to the world, and.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: That life was just stolen on a Thursday evening. Yeah,
• 4:55
  that's set the scene. It's November sixth, twenty twenty five.
• 4:58
  It's around six pm and Lawrence, Kansas, And you have.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: To remember November in the Midwest. By six pm it
• 5:05
  is dusk, the sun is setting or it's already set.
• 5:08
  It's that twilight hour where visibility starts to drop fast.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: So Elsa is out for a run. She's jogging on
• 5:14
  a road called East fifteen hundred Road. For our listeners
• 5:17
  who haven't been to Lawrence, what kind of area is this?
• 5:21
  Is this like a busy city street?
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: No, not really. It's north of the main part of town,
• 5:25
  near the Lawrence Regional Airport. It's a rural stretch of road.
• 5:28
  It sits between US twenty four to forty Highway and
• 5:31
  I seventy. It's exactly the kind of road that runners
• 5:34
  and cyclists love because it's usually quieter than the streets
• 5:37
  in town. Right, it's not a subdivision, but it's not
• 5:40
  a major highway as a classic rural Kansas road.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: So she's running southbound and based on everything in the investigation,
• 5:47
  she is doing what she's supposed to do. She's on
• 5:49
  the side of the road, minding her own business, and
• 5:51
  then a vehicle, also traveling southbound, strikes her from behind.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: The reports say multiple blunt force traumas. It was a
• 5:59
  catastrophic and the.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Driver the driver doesn't stop, doesn't call nine to one one,
• 6:03
  doesn't check.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: On her, no flees the scene immediately.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: That is the part that is just it's so hard
• 6:08
  to process the absolute cruelty of that. Elsa is left
• 6:12
  on the side of the road in the dark, and
• 6:14
  because it's a rural road, she isn't discovered right away.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: No, she wasn't. She lay there for hours. It wasn't
• 6:19
  until around three thirty in the morning the next morning,
• 6:22
  November seventh, that a passerby finally spotted her body in
• 6:26
  the seventeen hundred block of that road and called the
• 6:28
  authorities three thirty in the morning.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: I just I cannot even imagine the panic her friends
• 6:36
  and her family must have been feeling in those hours. Yeah,
• 6:38
  a twenty year old girl doesn't just vanish for nine hours,
• 6:41
  the text going unanswered, the calls just going to voicemail,
• 6:44
  and then to get that news in the middle of
• 6:47
  the night.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: It's the absolute worst case scenario. And when the Douglas
• 6:50
  County Sheriff's deputies got there, the scene was tragic. They
• 6:53
  confirmed it was a fatality, but they had a huge problem.
• 6:57
  They had a victim, but they had no vehicle.
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: How do you even begin to solve a case like that,
• 7:02
  a hit and run on a dark road with no eyewitnesses.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: You have to lean on forensic science and digital surveillance.
• 7:10
  The investigators. They did an incredible job just working backwards.
• 7:12
  They started pulling surveillance footage from businesses in the surrounding.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Area and they found her on tape. They did.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: They found footage of Elsa running southbound just moments before
• 7:22
  the estimated time of the crash. That was crucial. It
• 7:25
  gave them a precise timestamp. They knew exactly when she
• 7:29
  was in that specific corridor.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, so once they had the time, they could start.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: Looking for the car exactly. They turned to traffic cameras
• 7:36
  and you know those license plate readers LPRs in the vicinity.
• 7:40
  They looked for every single vehicle that passed through that
• 7:42
  area around six pm, and they started eliminating them one
• 7:46
  by one until they zeroed in on one specific truck.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: A two thousand and eight to for f one fifty.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: That's the one, a white pickup truck.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Now, finding a truck on a camera is a great lead,
• 7:57
  but it's not proofs. You have to prove that truck
• 7:59
  hit that person.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: And that's where the physical evidence comes in. When investigators
• 8:03
  tracked that truck down and located it, the damage told
• 8:06
  the story. The front windshield was smashed in the passenger
• 8:10
  side headlight was completely broken.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: Which is consistent with hitting a pedestrian who's on the
• 8:14
  right side.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Of the road precisely. But the smoking gun, if you
• 8:19
  want to call it, that was inside the headlight assembly itself.
• 8:23
  The forensic team found fibers embedded in the broken glass.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: And plastic fibers from from what.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Green fibers which were a perfect match to the green
• 8:32
  shirt Elsa McGrain was wearing that night.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Wow, so there's essentially zero doubt that was the truck.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: The forensic link is undeniable. That truck struck Elsa m macgrain,
• 8:42
  and that leads us to the person who is behind
• 8:44
  the wheel, William Ray Klingler.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: And this is where the story shifts from a tragedy
• 8:48
  to a story of just staggering negligence and criminality.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Klingler is thirty seven years old, a local Lawrence resident,
• 8:56
  and his behavior after the crash it tells you everything
• 8:59
  you need to know about his mindset.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: It really does. The sources reveal this detail that is
• 9:03
  just it's chilling. After the crash, remember, his windshield is smashed,
• 9:07
  his headlight is gone. He didn't go to the police.
• 9:10
  He drove to an acquaintance's house.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: And what did he say.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: He tried to create an albi He asked this person
• 9:15
  to come outside and look at his truck. He claimed
• 9:17
  he had hit a deer.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Ah the deer excuse, it's the go to for rural
• 9:21
  hit and runs. It is.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: But here's the thing about hitting a deer at high speed.
• 9:28
  It leaves a mess. There's fur, there's blood, there is
• 9:31
  biological matter. The person he asked to look at the
• 9:34
  truck took one look and knew something was wrong. Really yeah,
• 9:38
  they pointed out to Klingler, Hey, there's no deer hair,
• 9:41
  there's no blood, there's no evidence of an animal strike here.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: And how did Klingler react to that?
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: He reportedly panicked. The sources say he admitted he was
• 9:49
  scared and then revealed that he hadn't hit a deer.
• 9:51
  He basically admitted he knew he had hit something else
• 9:54
  or someone else.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: He knew, he absolutely knew, and still he evaded capture
• 9:59
  for two days. He wasn't arrested until November ninth. And
• 10:02
  this is where the deep dive part of this really starts,
• 10:04
  because when they arrested him, it wasn't just for the
• 10:06
  hit and run. He already had an outstanding warrant.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: This is where we have to look at the pattern,
• 10:11
  because the entire argument of the lawsuit against DoorDash hinges
• 10:15
  on this idea that this man was unfit to be
• 10:17
  on the road, and when you look at his record,
• 10:19
  it is impossible to argue otherwise.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Let's just let's go through the rap sheet that's been
• 10:24
  provided in our sources. It's not one mistake, it's a lifestyle.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: It is a clear timeline of escalation. Between twenty eighteen
• 10:30
  and twenty twenty three, Klingler was involved in at least
• 10:34
  four separate DUI related incidents.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Four that's not you know, I had one too many
• 10:38
  at a wedding. That is chronic. That is a serious problem.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: He had three convictions and a fourth charge that was
• 10:45
  still pending from April of twenty twenty four. But it
• 10:49
  goes beyond just alcohol. He also had charges for possession
• 10:52
  of methamphetamine myth yes, and maybe most damning in the
• 10:57
  context of a driving job. He had charges for Tampa
• 11:00
  bring with an ignition interlock device.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, hold on, let's unpack that. An ignition interlock is
• 11:05
  the breathalyzer they put in your car if you get
• 11:06
  a DUY yeah, to blow into it, to dart the engine.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Correct, It's a technological safety barrier mandated by the court.
• 11:12
  So if you're charged with tampering with it, that means
• 11:14
  you are actively trying to bypass the safety mechanism. You're
• 11:17
  trying to figure out how to drive drunk despite the
• 11:19
  court's order. It just shows a willful disregard for safety.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: And on top of all that, he was charged with
• 11:25
  driving while suspended and not for.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: The first time. The records specifically note it was a
• 11:31
  second or subsequent offense. So let's just summarize this driver profile.
• 11:35
  No valid license, a history of driving drunk, a history
• 11:39
  of meth use, and a history of actively disabling safety devices.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: If you're writing a fictional character who's supposed to be
• 11:46
  the worst possible candidate for a delivery driver, this is
• 11:50
  who you would write.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: He's the poster child. And there's one more failure here
• 11:54
  in the criminal justice system itself before we even touch
• 11:56
  the gig economy. In August of twenty twenty five, three
• 12:00
  months before Elsa was killed, Klingler was released on bond
• 12:03
  for a prior case. What kind of bond A ten
• 12:06
  thousand dollars personal or cognizance bond.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: A PR bond, which means he didn't pay anything right.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Right, A PR bond means you just signed and promise
• 12:12
  to show up for court. You don't put up cash,
• 12:14
  You don't need a bailbondsman. And the McGrain family is
• 12:18
  furious about this, and rightfully so. They're now advocating for
• 12:22
  bond reform in Kansas. They're asking why was a repeat
• 12:26
  offender with a history of substance abuse and flight risk
• 12:29
  allowed to just walk free on a signature.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: It's a fair question. If he had been held on
• 12:33
  a cash bond, or if the judge had just looked
• 12:35
  at his record and said you are a danger to
• 12:38
  the community, he would have been in jail on November sixth.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: And else McGrain would likely still be alive today. It's
• 12:43
  a tragic failure of the state, but now we have
• 12:46
  to look at the failure of the market bias. On
• 12:49
  February fourth, twenty twenty six, the McGrain family filed a
• 12:52
  lawsuit that alleges this wasn't just some rogue criminal. It
• 12:55
  claims he was working.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: This is the bombshell. The lawsuit name's William Rake Klingler,
• 13:00
  of course, but it also names DoorDash Incorporated in all.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Its subsidiaries, specifically DoorDash Commerce Platform LLC, DoorDash Essentials LLC,
• 13:09
  and DoorDash G and C LLC. They are casting a very.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Wide net and they are seeking damages for wrongful death,
• 13:15
  pain and suffering lost future earnings. And given that Elsa
• 13:19
  was on track to be a doctor, those lost earnings
• 13:21
  are They're substantial, but the money it's in almost secondary
• 13:25
  to the accusation itself. What is the core claim?
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: The central allegation is that at the time of the crash,
• 13:30
  William Ray Klingler was actively making deliveries for DoorDash.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: I just want to pause and let that sink in.
• 13:36
  A man with a suspended license and pending meth charges
• 13:39
  was allegedly out delivering somebody's dinner.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Mm hmmm. How that is the million dollar question. The
• 13:45
  lawsuit describes Klingler as unvetted, unauthorized, and unfit, but it
• 13:50
  alleges he was on the platform working.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: So the family is arguing that DoorDash created a system
• 13:56
  that allowed this to be possible.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Yes, the legal terms they're using our negligence and strict liability.
• 14:02
  They're arguing that DoorDash failed to hire fit drivers, they
• 14:05
  failed to implement reasonable identity verification safeguards, and crucially, they
• 14:11
  argue that the app itself is an unreasonably dangerous condition.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Unreasonably dangerous condition we usually hear that about like an
• 14:17
  exploding air bag or contaminated food exactly.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: It's product liability language. The argument is this, the DoorDash
• 14:24
  app is a product, and if that product allows a
• 14:26
  dangerous person to operate a vehicle while distracted by the
• 14:29
  app without verifying who they are, then the product is defective.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: That is a really fascinating legal pivot treating the software
• 14:37
  the app is a defective product because it lacks basic
• 14:40
  safety features.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: It's the digital equivalent of selling a car without seat belts.
• 14:45
  The plaintiffs are basically saying, you built a machine that
• 14:48
  puts dangerous people on the road and you didn't install
• 14:52
  the breaks of identity verification.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: But DoorDash has to have defense, right They're going to
• 14:56
  come out and say we have background checks, Yeah, we
• 14:58
  use check R. We would never or hire this guy.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: And they are right to a point. A DoorDash spokesperson
• 15:04
  has already gone on the record and stated quote Klingler
• 15:07
  was never granted access to the door dash platform.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, so they're denying it flat out. They're saying he's
• 15:12
  not one of ours.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: They are saying we did not hire him. But the
• 15:17
  lawsuit a ledges he was dashing. So how do we
• 15:20
  reconcile those two things? How can someone be dashing if
• 15:23
  they weren't hired?
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to the loophole, the so called
• 15:28
  gig economy black market. We need to explain how this
• 15:31
  actually works. We do.
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: We have to talk about account sharing, or sometimes it's
• 15:35
  called account renting. This is the mechanics behind the whole
• 15:37
  negligence claim.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, so walk me through this. If I'm a person
• 15:41
  with a clean record, I can sign up to be
• 15:44
  a dasher, right right.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: You submit your driver's license, your social security number, check
• 15:49
  our runs your background, It comes up clean, You get approved,
• 15:53
  You get your little insulated bag. You are now a dasher.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, but let's say I don't actually want to drive,
• 16:00
  maybe I'm lazy, or I have another.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: Job, or maybe you just want to exploit the system.
• 16:05
  You can go online Facebook, Marketplace, Telegram, these specialized forums
• 16:09
  and you can literally rent out your active account.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: So I just give my username, impassword to someone else, exactly.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: You find someone like Clingler, someone who can't pass a
• 16:17
  background check because of his criminal record, You say, look,
• 16:20
  here's my login. You go to the driving, you pay me,
• 16:23
  say one hundred bucks a week for the account, and
• 16:25
  you keep whatever else you make, or maybe you split
• 16:27
  the earnings seventy thirty.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: So it's like subletting an apartment, but you're subletting a job.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: A job that involves driving a two ton vehicle on
• 16:35
  public roads at high speeds.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Well, wait a second, doesn't the app know? I mean,
• 16:40
  my phone uses face ID just to unlock my banking
• 16:44
  app scans my face if I look at it the
• 16:46
  wrong way. Does DoorDash not check who is actually holding
• 16:49
  the phone?
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Well, DoorDash claims they do. They say they use machine
• 16:53
  learning to detect suspicious activity. They claim they require over
• 16:57
  one hundred and fifty thousand ashers to reverify their identity
• 17:01
  with the selfie every single week.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: One hundred fifty thousand sounds like a big number.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: It sounds big, but you have to look at the denominator.
• 17:08
  There are millions of dashers. Reportedly over seven million active
• 17:13
  dashers globally as of recent counts. So if you're only
• 17:16
  checking one hundred and fifty thousand a week. That leaves
• 17:18
  a lot of holes, a lot of unchecked accounts.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: And even if they do ask for a selfie, I'm
• 17:23
  guessing there are ways around that.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: It's a constant cat and mouse game. There are entire
• 17:29
  YouTube tutorials on how to bypass these gig app verifications.
• 17:33
  People use high resolution photos of the original account owner,
• 17:36
  They use software to spoof the phones camera feed, and
• 17:39
  if the account owner is complicit, if they want the
• 17:41
  renter to keep driving so they get their cut, they
• 17:44
  might even help them bypass the check, like, hey.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: I just got a selfie request, come over and scan
• 17:48
  my face real quick so.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: You can keep driving exactly that, or text me the link.
• 17:53
  The lawsuit argues that DoorDash knows this is happening, that
• 17:57
  they create and profit from this very system because it
• 18:00
  keeps more drivers on the road, which keeps delivery times down.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: This gets to the why why wouldn't DoorDash just lock
• 18:07
  this down completely? Why not demand I don't know, a
• 18:10
  fingerprint scan every time you steer the car, or a
• 18:13
  face ID scan for every single order you accept.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: One word friction in the tech world, friction is the
• 18:19
  enemy anything that slows the user down is bad for business.
• 18:23
  If you make a driver pull over, turn on the
• 18:25
  dome light and take a perfect selfie before every single order,
• 18:29
  that adds what thirty seconds a minute to the delivery time.
• 18:31
  It annoys the driver might make them switch over to
• 18:34
  Uber Eats or grub hub.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: So the incentive is pure speed.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: The incentive is growth in liquidity. They need as many
• 18:40
  drivers as possible to keep those delivery times low and
• 18:43
  customers happy. If they enforce strict military grade security, they
• 18:47
  lose drivers. So the argument goes, they choose to tolerate
• 18:51
  a certain level of account sharing to keep the whole system.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Moving, and that tolerance, the lawsuit argues, is what killed
• 18:57
  Elsama Grain Right.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: The strict liability argument is, you built a system that
• 19:02
  prioritize speed over safety. You knew account sharing was a risk,
• 19:07
  you didn't do enough to stop it. Therefore, you are
• 19:10
  liable for the damage caused by the unauthorized driver who
• 19:13
  used your platform.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: It really challenges the whole independent contractor defense, doesn't it.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, it attacks the very foundation of the gig economy.
• 19:22
  For a decade now, these companies have hidden behind that.
• 19:24
  They've said, look, we're just a platform, a marketplace. We
• 19:27
  connect driver A to customer B. We aren't their boss.
• 19:31
  We are not responsible if they crash their car.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: But if they're controlling the logistics, telling them where to go,
• 19:36
  when to pick up, but they're failing to control the
• 19:39
  identity of the person doing the.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Work, then that independent contractor shields starts to look really,
• 19:44
  really thin. The McGrain suit argues, this is negligent platform design.
• 19:49
  It was foreseeable that bad actors would use the platform,
• 19:52
  and it was foreseeable that those bad actors would cause harm.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: And Doordash's specific denial that Klingler was never granted acts.
• 20:00
  That's really just a technicality, isn't it.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: It's a very carefully worded, lawyerly statement. We didn't give
• 20:06
  him the keys, But the lawsuit is basically saying you
• 20:09
  left the keys on the front porch where anyone could
• 20:11
  grab them.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Let's zoom out for a second. This isn't the first
• 20:15
  lawsuit against a gig company, but it feels different.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: It is very different. We've seen these big settlements sixteen
• 20:22
  million here, eighteen million there, but those were almost always
• 20:25
  about money, right, wage, theft, tips, worker classification.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: You owe me back pay that kind of thing exactly.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: This is a tort case, this is a wrongful death case.
• 20:35
  It's about physical safety, and we have seen cases about
• 20:39
  assaults by drivers, but a fatality caused by a driver
• 20:43
  who allegedly bypassed the entire vetting system. That strikes at
• 20:48
  the absolute core of the trust we the public place
• 20:51
  in these apps every day.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Because if they lose this. Yeah, if a court says
• 20:55
  door Dash you have a duty to verify the driver's
• 20:58
  identity in real time, that changes the entire industry overnight.
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: It would likely force the implementation of biometric security across
• 21:06
  the board, real time facial recognition, maybe even geofenced idjs.
• 21:11
  It would absolutely make the system safer, but it would
• 21:14
  be expensive, and it would add that friction they hate
• 21:16
  so much.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: And frankly, as a customer, I think I'd pay an
• 21:19
  extra dollar for my burrito if I knew for sure
• 21:22
  the driver was verified and safe.
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: I think most people would, But the companies have been
• 21:27
  very hesitant to test that hypothesis.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: What about the driver's side of this? Why does someone
• 21:32
  like Klingler do this? I mean he's dashing, he's trying
• 21:35
  to work.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: It speaks to a level of desperation. If you have
• 21:39
  a criminal record, if you have a history of substance abuse.
• 21:42
  The traditional job market is for the most part closed
• 21:45
  to you. You can't get hired at a bank, you
• 21:47
  can't get hired at a school. Even Walmart runs background checks.
• 21:51
  So this gig economy black market becomes a last resort.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: It's a way to make money when literally no one
• 21:57
  else will hire you, which is a tragic to idle
• 22:00
  issue in itself, the lack of real rehabilitation paths.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: It is. Yeah, but we have to draw the line
• 22:06
  at public safety. You cannot allow someone with active meth
• 22:09
  charges and a suspended license to operate a commercial vehicle
• 22:13
  just because they need the money. The risk to the public,
• 22:15
  to people like Elsa is just too high.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the consequences. What happens next. We
• 22:20
  have the legislative ripples right.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: The McGrain family is fighting on two fronts. In the
• 22:25
  courtroom and in the state house. They are pushing hard
• 22:28
  for bond reform in Kansas to ensure that repeat offenders
• 22:31
  can't just sign a piece of paper and walk out
• 22:33
  of jail.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: And on the tech side of things.
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: This case could be the spark that leads to legislation
• 22:37
  requiring real time ID verification for all delivery drivers. States
• 22:42
  might not wait for the companies to volunteer to do it,
• 22:45
  they might mandate it. If you want to operate in Kansas,
• 22:48
  your app must verify the driver every single time the
• 22:51
  engine starts.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: That would be a game changer. So what are the
• 22:54
  next steps in the legal process.
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: We have two tracks running parallel, the criminal track and
• 22:59
  the civil track.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's start with the criminal. Klingler is in jail.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, he's being held without bond in the Douglas County
• 23:07
  Detention Center. His next status conference is set for February seventeenth,
• 23:11
  twenty twenty six. He is facing very serious felonies leaving
• 23:15
  the scene of fate at fatality, driving while suspended, and
• 23:18
  potentially more depending on how the investigation evolves. And given
• 23:22
  his flight risk, I mean he literally flooded the scene.
• 23:24
  He is not getting out this time.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: And the civil suit against DoorDash that is.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Going to be a long drawn out battle. The next
• 23:31
  phase is called discovery, and this is where it gets
• 23:33
  really technical and fascinating.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: What are the lawyers going to be looking for in
• 23:37
  discovery data?
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: Hard data? They are going to subpoena Doordash's server logs.
• 23:43
  They will ask questions like, was there an active dasher
• 23:45
  session on a phone located in that Ford f one
• 23:48
  fifty at six pm on November sixth, was there an
• 23:51
  order in the queue whose account was logged in at
• 23:53
  that moment?
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: And if the GPS data matches, If.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: The data shows that a phone inside Kleingler's truck was
• 23:58
  communicating with the DoorDash server, picking up an order or
• 24:01
  dropping one off right around that time, then Doordash's defense
• 24:05
  that he wasn't a driver gets very, very complicated.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: It shifts from we don't know this man to we
• 24:12
  failed to stop this man from using our system.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and juries juries are human. They look at the
• 24:18
  result a service was being performed for DoorDash. DoorDash got
• 24:21
  paid their fee, the customer got their food, and a bright,
• 24:25
  promising young woman named Elsa McGrain got killed in the process.
• 24:29
  A jury might not care about the technicality of whose
• 24:31
  name was on the account. They will just see that
• 24:33
  chain of events.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: It's just it's incredibly heavy. You start this story thinking
• 24:38
  about a traffic accident and you end up deep in
• 24:41
  the architecture of the gig economy and algorithmic negligence.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: That's the reality we live in now. Else's death exposed
• 24:48
  a fault line. We want our food fast, we want
• 24:50
  it cheap. We tap a button on our phone and
• 24:52
  magic happens, but we so rarely ask what system makes
• 24:56
  that magic possible.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: And who is actually bringing it to my door?
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, is it the person in the photo or is
• 25:02
  it someone who's renting the account because they couldn't pass
• 25:04
  a background check.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Before we wrap this up, I want to bring it
• 25:07
  back to Elsa because in all this talk about lawsuits
• 25:10
  and data logs and legal strategy, I don't want her
• 25:13
  to become an abstraction.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: She deserves to be the focus. She was a house manager,
• 25:17
  a future pediatrician, a servant leader. The loss to her
• 25:21
  family is immeasurable. But the loss to the world, all
• 25:25
  the patience she would have treated, the lives she would
• 25:27
  have touched, that's also real.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: The McGrain families fight. It's obviously about justice for her,
• 25:34
  but it's also about prevention. If this lawsuit forces DoorDash
• 25:38
  and others to change their security protocols, if it makes
• 25:41
  the streets safer.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Then Else's legacy continues. She wanted to save lives as
• 25:45
  a doctor. Now her story might save lives by changing
• 25:48
  the law and changing the industry.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: That's a beautiful way to frame it. She is still
• 25:52
  helping people. Yes, So here's the final thought for you,
• 25:54
  the listener. The next time you open an app, whether
• 25:57
  it's for a burger or for groceries or to the airport,
• 26:00
  and you see that little car icon moving on the map,
• 26:03
  ask yourself a question. Do you actually know who is
• 26:07
  in that car?
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: And if the platform that sold you the service doesn't
• 26:10
  know either, who is responsible when something goes horribly wrong.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: That is the question the courts are going to have
• 26:15
  to answer in the coming months. We will be following
• 26:19
  the McGrain v. Door Dash case very closely. February seventeenth
• 26:23
  is the next date for the criminal trial.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Will keep you posted absolutely.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks for diving deep with us today. Hug your loved
• 26:29
  ones and please stay safe out there.