New Lyft Sexual Assault Lawsuits Can Be Directly Filed in MDL Using Short-Form Complaint

Order will speed up the processing of new Lyft sexual assault lawsuits regardless of where in the U.S. they were originally filed.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all Lyft sexual assault lawsuits has given plaintiffs the ability to file new claims directly with the MDL court in the Northern District of California regardless of where they live, seeking to make consolidation of those complaints more efficient.

Lyft currently faces more than 50 lawsuits brought by former passengers who allege they were sexually assaulted, raped, harassed or otherwise attacked by rideshare drivers. Most of the plaintiffs are women who claim the company failed to implement basic safety measures that could have reduced the risk of assaults, including more thorough background checks, in-vehicle surveillance cameras, stronger driver monitoring and mandatory sexual harassment training.

The lawsuits allege Lyft promoted its service as a safe transportation option, particularly for women and passengers who needed a ride home after drinking, while failing to address known risks involving driver misconduct. Plaintiffs claim the company placed growth and profits ahead of passenger safety by allowing dangerous drivers to remain on the platform and by not adopting stronger safeguards after prior reports of sexual assaults.

Many of the complaints describe passengers being groped, threatened, sexually assaulted, raped or kidnapped during rides they ordered because they believed Lyft was safer than driving themselves or walking alone. The attacks allegedly left passengers with lasting physical injuries, emotional trauma, anxiety, depression and fear of using rideshare services again.

The plaintiffs maintain these incidents were not isolated or unforeseeable, but part of a broader pattern of safety failures at Lyft. They argue the company knew sexual assaults were being reported by passengers, yet continued marketing the rideshare service as a safe alternative without adequately warning users or changing policies to better protect them.

In February, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) ordered all Lyft sexual assault lawsuits consolidated into an MDL, or multidistrict litigation, in the Northern District of California before U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings. It is expected that Judge Lin will eventually order the parties to prepare to hold a series of early test trials.

These “bellwether” test cases would be chosen from claims that are largely representative of the litigation as a whole, and will provide the parties with a chance to see how juries respond to evidence and testimony that would be repeated in the majority of cases.

Lyft Sexual Assault Direct Filing Order

In complex product liability lawsuits, where large numbers of individuals are pursuing similar claims and allegations, it is common for the court to approve a master and short-form complaint, allowing plaintiffs to file future lawsuits through an abbreviated form, where they choose the allegations that are relevant to their specific claims.

In a pretrial order (PDF) issued on June 8, Judge Lin announced she was adopting a short-form complaint proposed by plaintiffs who filed a master long-form complaint, on which the short-forms will be based, last month.

The option to file directly with the MDL court will dramatically streamline the process for women bringing new lawsuits over sexual assaults by Lyft drivers. It will also reduce delays linked with transferring complaints from various different U.S. District Courts nationwide, and allow parties to standardize information gathered about each claim. This should help determine which lawsuits are the most representative of the litigation as a whole.

Each plaintiff with a case already filed with the MDL court will have 14 days to submit a short-form complaint, and any cases transferred to the MDL after the order will have 14 days to serve and file their short-form complaints.

Lyft Lawsuit Pretrial Case Schedule

The order comes only a couple weeks after Judge Lin issued a separate pretrial order (PDF) in late May, announcing key deadlines in the litigation. That order calls for Lyft to produce initial disclosures by July 6, 2026, to file any motions to dismiss on crosscutting issues by August 4, and to substantially complete production of discovery on documents sent to government entities by August 17.

Plaintiffs are to file opposition to the motions to dismiss by September 3, with Lyft’s responses due by September 24. The parties have been given a deadline of March 5, 2027, to meet and confer on proposing a bellwether selection protocol, which should be completed and submitted by April 5, 2027.

Case specific fact discovery for the first wave of expected bellwether trials will be due for completion by December 10, 2027, meaning the first trial would not happen before mid-2028.

Uber Sexual Assault Lawsuits

While Lyft faces dozens of such claims, its competitor faces about 3,300 Uber sexual assault lawsuits involving nearly identical claims about driver attacks and the lack of passenger safety concerns. Consolidated in the same district, those cases are being overseen by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer and are much further along than the Lyft litigation.

The first Uber sexual assault bellwether trial was held in February, ending with an $8.5 million verdict for Jaylynn Dean, a former passenger who alleged she was raped by an Uber driver in November 2023. Jurors determined that while Uber was not liable for failing to provide additional safety features, it was responsible for the actions of the driver, who they saw as acting as an agent of the rideshare service at the time of the assault. The second bellwether trial ended in April, with plaintiff Brianna Mensing being awarded $5,000.

The outcomes of these bellwether trials are not binding on other claims, but the results are being closely watched for their potential impact on Uber sexual assault lawsuit settlement negotiations. Once the trials conclude, if there is still no settlement, Judge Breyer may begin remanding cases back to their original districts for individual trial dates.

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