Uber just lost a battle it's been fighting for years. A federal jury in Phoenix ruled the rideshare giant liable for a driver's sexual assault of passenger Jaylynn Dean in November 2023, ordering the company to pay $8.5 million in damages. It's the first verdict in a wave of over 3,000 similar cases consolidated in federal court, and it could rewrite the rules on platform accountability across the gig economy.
Uber has spent nearly a decade insisting it can't be held responsible when drivers commit crimes. That argument just collapsed in a Phoenix courtroom. A federal jury ruled the rideshare company liable for the sexual assault of Jaylynn Dean, who testified she was raped by her Uber driver during a November 2023 ride to her hotel. The verdict comes with an $8.5 million price tag and potentially opens the floodgates on thousands of similar claims.
The decision marks a seismic shift in how courts view platform liability in the gig economy. Over 3,000 sexual assault cases against Uber are currently consolidated in US federal court under district judge Charles Breyer, who's overseeing Dean's case. While this verdict isn't binding on those other lawsuits, it's the first to reach a jury - making it a critical bellwether for every case that follows.
"Today's verdict validates the thousands of survivors who have come forward at great personal risk to demand accountability against Uber for its focus on profit over passenger safety," Sarah London, co-lead and liaison counsel for the plaintiffs, said in a statement reported by The Verge. "The jury heard extensive evidence about Uber's practices and recognized that Uber is responsible for the conduct of its drivers."
The numbers behind the case are staggering. According to Uber's most recent US safety report, the company received 12,522 reports of sexual assault between 2017 and 2022. Nearly 70 percent of those reports were filed against drivers. That's roughly one report every eight hours for five years straight, as .
