San Diego is suing scooter companies including Lyft and Bird to get them to pay city’s litigation costs generated by any lawsuit they are involved in

  San Diego is suing scooter companies to get them to pay the city's costs to defend any lawsuits generated by the two-wheeled vehicles ...

 San Diego is suing scooter companies to get them to pay the city's costs to defend any lawsuits generated by the two-wheeled vehicles that have proliferated on public sidewalks.

The Union-Tribune reported Tuesday that City Attorney Mara Elliott filed suit last week against Bird, Lyft and a handful of other firms that signed operating agreements with San Diego to rent the dockless scooters.

The lawsuit comes after disability-rights advocates sued the city in federal court alleging the scooters are too often left in the way of pedestrians, clogging public rights of way and endangering people who use wheelchairs or are visually impaired. 

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San Diego is suing scooter companies to get them to pay the city's costs to defend any lawsuits generated by the two-wheeled vehicles that have proliferated on public sidewalks

That class action suit initially named the scooter companies as defendants, but a judge dismissed them from the complaint last year, leaving the city as the sole defendant.

According to the city's new lawsuit, the companies' operating agreements specifically require Bird, Lyft and other firms to defend San Diego from any litigation related to the scooters.

A spokesman for Lyft said the company does not comment on pending litigation. Bird and other defendants did not immediately respond to requests from the Union-Tribune for comment about the lawsuit.

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The city's new lawsuit claims that scooter rentals, Bird and Lyft, have companies' operating agreements that require them to defend San Diego from any litigation

Co-defendants named in the lawsuit also include Wheels Lab Inc., Skip Transport Inc., Skinny Labs Inc. and Neutron Holdings. 

Electric scooters became popular in San Diego about five years ago but the rapid increase of scooters in the city soon became problematic.

Customers left scooters lying across sidewalks and many declined to wear helmets and were subsequently injured while riding.