Uber liable for sexual assault by driver 

Jaylynn Dean says the ride-hail giant failed to implement reasonable safety standards that would have prevented her driver from assaulting her in November 2023.

PHOENIX (CN) — A federal jury on Thursday found Uber liable for the sexual assault of a passenger by her Uber driver in Arizona.

The jury, comprised of six women and three men, deliberated for the better part of two days before finding the ride-hail liable under the apparent agency doctrine. They awarded plaintiff Jaylynn Dean $8.5 million in compensatory damages.

“We feel like justice was delivered,” Dean’s attorney Sarah London said outside a Phoenix courtroom. “We’re extremely proud of our client for what she did. And she was heard.”

Dean declined to comment.

The jury rejected two other claims for negligence and design defect, and awarded no punitive damages despite Dean’s ask of more than $120 million.

Uber also considers the verdict a win.

“This verdict affirms that Uber acted responsibly and has invested meaningfully in rider safety. We will continue to put safety at the heart of everything we do,” Uber said in a statement to Courthouse News.

Uber plans to appeal the verdict, taking issue with apparent agency instructions given to the jury by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer.

Dean says Uber could have, but refused, to implement reasonable safety standards like mandatory in-car cameras and stricter background checks that would have prevented her driver from assaulting her in November 2023.

Over three weeks of trial, Dean presented evidence suggesting Uber has been aware of its sexual assault problem for years and took no remedial action.

Uber revealed in a 2019 safety report more than 5,000 reports of sexual assaults by drivers were made in a two-year span. Rates dipped during the Covid-19 pandemic but resumed climbing after that, resulting in more than 3,000 individual federal lawsuits consolidated into a multi-district litigation in the Northern District of California.

This was the first of 20 bellwether cases U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer will hear consecutively.

When hiring Hassan Turay as a driver, Dean told the nine-person jury that Uber asked for no resume, references or proof of previous employment and ignored previous complaints made by other passengers. She added that Uber conducted no background checks outside the U.S., where Turay had spent the majority of his life.

Despite this, Juror #8 said the jury agreed that the driver had no obvious red flags when he was hired.

“So we felt that Uber wasn’t negligent,” the juror, who declined to give her real name, said.

While driving her to a hotel in Tempe, Arizona, Turay stopped the ride early and raped Dean in the back of his car while she was drunk. Uber sent Dean a ridecheck notification, noticing that the trip had ended early and asking whether Dean was OK. She didn’t see it.

Because they didn’t find negligence, the jurors declined to award punitive damages, and divided Dean’s compensatory damages request of $24 million by three.

Juror #1, who also declined to share his name, said he wanted to award Dean more.

“A lot of people couldn’t seem to think about it outside of themselves,” he said. “Like that’s a lot of money. I could live off that comfortably forever. To me, I wanted to fight it a lot.”

He said he would rather have evaluated damages based on how much Uber is worth rather than what an individual could do with the same amount.

“I plead the fifth” he said when asked whether Uber did all it could to protect Dean.

Uber argued it cannot be held liable for actions of drivers that fall outside of the company’s technology services agreement. Drivers on Uber’s platform are not Uber employees, the company said, but rather are third-party contractors using the platform to be matched with customers.

Under Dean’s apparent agency claim, though, jurors found Dean reasonably assumed that Turay worked for Uber and therefore Uber should have been responsible for his actions.

“They on their own social media say you’re taking an Uber with your Uber driver,” said juror #8. “I think it’s easy for her to believe that he’s an employee of Uber.”

Uber terminated Turay immediately upon Dean’s report for his violation of the company’s no sex rule. Uber attorneys maintained in court that Dean consented, though Turay admitted in his deposition that Dean was probably too drunk to do so.

“You’ve just made me see another aspect with the whole thing of consent,” he said in a deposition video played for the jury on Jan. 21.

Uber attorneys argued that the company took massive steps toward safety improvements over the last ten years, including partnerships with sexual assault prevention and other women’s safety advocacy groups.

Uber spent more than $5 million on its “Driving Change” initiative, partnering with a number of nonprofits like the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and its partner initiative Raliance. Raliance helped Uber create tools to identify and categorize sexual assault incidents and shared with Uber prevention information and resources.

Dean’s counsel characterized the partnerships as simply “quid pro quo” public relations for Uber. In a statement to Courthouse News, Raliance said its partnership with Uber does not imply endorsement. “RALIANCE’s opinions are its own, regardless of funding source,” the company said.

Uber assured the jury that it has improved ride safety features, like real-time ID checks, driver selfie requirements, an in-app emergency button and an option to connect with a live ADT agent for the duration of the trip. Uber says it has removed more than 185,000 drivers for misconduct thanks to repeated annual background screenings.

In the lawsuit, filed Dec. 29, 2023, Dean charged Uber with both strict and vicarious liability, negligence and intentional misrepresentation, arguing that Uber explicitly marketed its product to women as a safe choice when drinking and/or traveling alone.

Uber moved twice for a mistrial after Dean’s attorney, Sarah London, “created a sideshow” by pointing out a nonparty in the gallery. The woman, Jessica Chase, had been banned from the platform for submitting false sexual harassment reports, but later regained access by making multiple accounts.

Defense attorney Kim Beuno said the incident influenced the jury by implying that Chase had told the truth and that Uber ignored a serious report. Breyer, a Bill Clinton appointee, denied the motions.