A federal jury in Phoenix decided, this Thursday (5), that Uber must pay US$8.5 million (R$45 million) to a passenger who says she was raped by an app driver. The decision could serve as the basis for thousands of similar lawsuits running through US courts.
The company has always maintained that it cannot be held responsible for the conduct of those who drive on the platform, as drivers are classified as independent contractors, not employees. The jury didn’t buy that argument, which creates a roadmap for more than 3,000 sexual assault and abuse lawsuits that accuse Uber of structural safety failures.
The case was filed by Jaylynn Dean, who claims she was raped in November 2023, during a run between her boyfriend’s apartment and the hotel where she was staying, in Tempe, Arizona.
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“I want this not to happen to other women,” she said when testifying. “I’m doing this for those who thought the same as me, that they were making a safe and intelligent decision — but that, in practice, they were at risk of being attacked.”
Uber managed to avoid other accusations in this process, such as widespread negligence in security practices and alleged defects in the app.
“This verdict confirms that Uber acted responsibly and invested significantly in user safety,” said Matt Kallman, company spokesperson, in a statement. “We will continue to put safety at the center of everything we do.”
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Kallman said the company plans to appeal, saying the judge gave the jury wrong instructions.
Pressure on Uber has been increasing in the US, as parliamentarians, investors and entities demand a firmer response to the pattern of sexual violence in rides on the app.
Dean’s lawsuit is considered a “test case” (bellwether) within a package of federal actions that group together thousands of sexual assault lawsuits against the company. This model allows common procedural issues to be dealt with by the same judge, although each case is judged separately. The verdict does not automatically apply to other actions, but acts as a “reality test” of the arguments before a jury, explains Nora Freeman Engstrom, a professor at Stanford Law School.
“These model cases give both parties — and the public — the chance to see if the collective action really has any legs,” he says.
Over the course of three weeks, jurors heard Dean’s detailed account, testimony from Uber executives and accessed thousands of pages of internal documents. Among them, records showing that the company had classified the young woman’s ride as high risk for a serious incident just moments before the driver picked her up. Uber did not issue any warning to the passenger; one executive said in court that this type of warning would be “impractical”.
Dean’s defense also presented documents that suggest the company resisted adopting features such as internal cameras because it believed they could slow the business’s growth.
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Dean spent hours giving an emotionally charged statement about the night of 2023. At 19 years old, having recently arrived in Arizona to study and become a flight attendant, she had just passed an important test. He went out to celebrate, drank too much and, on the way back, ordered an Uber from his boyfriend’s apartment to the hotel.
According to the report, the driver entered a dark parking lot, got into the back seat and raped her. She said she “went off and on” and was unable to stop the attack.
Dean reported the case to the police and Uber, who banned the driver from the platform. He was not the subject of a criminal complaint and is not named by name in the process.
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After the attack, she abandoned her plan to become a flight attendant, saying that the work environment would be difficult given the trauma. He returned to his parents’ house, started working as an attendant in an emergency medical service and is now studying nursing. She said she is afraid of the dark because it reminds her of the car in the parking lot, where the rape took place. He said he sleeps with the lights on and sometimes in his parents’ bed.
Uber’s lawyers stated that the driver had no criminal record, had high passenger ratings, had completed training and declared that he was aware of the rule that prohibits any sexual relationship between drivers and users. They also said that the company is a reference in security in the sector, citing a machine learning tool to measure the risk of racing, other protection resources and public reports on aggressions and incidents in the app.
Sachin Kansal, Uber’s product director, rejected the idea that the company had “stuck around” to adopt items such as in-vehicle cameras. Still, he acknowledged: “I would be the first to say we haven’t done enough. There’s still a lot to do.”
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