A federal jury this week found Uber legally liable in a 2023 sexual assault case — ordering the rideshare giant to pay $8.5 million to a woman who said one of its drivers raped her during a ride using the platform.
Uber said it plans to appeal the decision. (Representative photo/Reuters)The ruling, reached in Arizona on Thursday, follows years of criticism of Uber’s safety record, much of which spans thousands of incidents of sexual assault reported by both passengers and drivers. Because Uber drivers are classified as gig workers — working as contractors rather than company employees — the platform has long maintained that it is not responsible for their misconduct.
“Uber spends billions and billions of dollars to make it look like they’re (riding) with Uber. And that’s what the jury found yesterday,” Elaine Heard, an attorney representing plaintiff Jaylene Dean, told The Associated Press. The ruling determined that the driver was an “apparent agent” of the company, he explained, holding Uber responsible for the attack.
Heard added that his team is “very proud of our client to be facing such a large, powerful company.” And the jury’s decision could have significant implications in similar cases, he noted.
Uber said it plans to appeal. And beyond the apparent agency, the jury did not find the company negligent or defective in security measures.
Spokesman Andrew Hasbun said in a statement that the ruling “proves that Uber has acted responsibly and invested meaningfully in rider safety.” He added that the award was “well below” the full sum originally requested from the plaintiff’s lawyers.
The case stems from an Uber ride in November 2023 when Dean, then 19, was on her way to her hotel after celebrating her upcoming graduation from flight attendant training at her boyfriend’s house in Arizona. During the journey, the driver stopped the car, got into the back seat and raped her.
The driver was not named or part of this civil suit.
The lawsuit argued that Uber had known for a long time that its drivers were assaulting passengers and had not implemented the necessary safeguards to prevent it from happening. The complaint, filed in December 2023, called the company’s response “slow and inadequate” — “putting the lives and well-being of its customers at serious risk.”
Meanwhile, San Francisco-based Uber said it has taken a number of steps in an effort to improve security on its platform, including teaming up with Lyft in 2021 to create a database of drivers fired from its ride-hailing service for allegations of sexual harassment and other crimes.
The company maintains that reports of sexual harassment have declined significantly over the years. According to Uber’s report, there were 5,981 incidents of sexual assault reported on US rides between 2017 and 2018 — up from 2,717 between 2021 and 2022 (the most recent years with available data), which the platform says represented 0.0001% of total trips nationwide.
Still, critics insist that ride-sharing companies need to build more guardrails to protect consumers and take clear responsibility in the event of an attack.
Sarah London, another attorney representing Dean, said Thursday’s ruling vindicates “survivors coming forward at great personal risk to demand accountability against Uber.” Still, he said the work isn’t over.
While grateful for the outcome in favor of his client, he noted that thousands more cases remain and that “justice will ultimately be measured by the outcome of ongoing cases and whether meaningful safety reforms are implemented to protect future passengers.”
The AP typically does not name people who say they were sexually assaulted, unless they consent through their attorneys or come forward publicly, as Dean did through his lawyers.
