MDL Judge Updated on Uber Driver Sex Assault Lawsuit Status as Claims Top 2,800

More than 200 additional lawsuits have been filed over the last month alone.

With hundreds of new claims being brought each month, Uber now faces more than 2,800 lawsuits claiming drivers working for the rideshare company sexually harassed, assaulted, or raped passengers nationwide, which plaintiffs say the company made little effort to prevent.

Each of the Uber driver sex assault lawsuits, some of which are being prepared for early “bellwether” trial dates later this year, raise similar allegations that the rideshare service failed to enact adequate safety measures to protect passengers from predatory drivers, indicating that the company only does cursory background checks, fails to properly train drivers, or provide security features that could prevent the attacks. 

The vast majority of victims were young women, who faced harassment and assault in the form of drivers exposing themselves, groping them, and, in some cases, kidnapping and raping them.

Plaintiffs claim that the driver sexual assaults could have been prevented if the company had required surveillance cameras to be installed in Uber vehicles, allowed passengers to request drivers by gender, or taken other measures.

All lawsuits brought in various different U.S. District Courts nationwide have been consolidated as part of an Uber driver sexual assault MDL in the Northern District of California since October 2023, where Judge Charles R. Breyer has been presiding over coordinated discovery and preparing a small group of cases for early trial dates.

To help gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the claims, Judge Breyer selected six Uber driver assault lawsuits for the first wave of bellwether trials last month, indicating that the first case will begin on December 8, 2025.

As the parties continue to prepare those claims for early trial dates, they are scheduled to meet with the court today for a case management conference, to discuss the status of the litigation and progress of discovery in the litigation.

Ahead of the conference, the parties filed a joint case management statement (PDF) on June 3, providing Judge Breyer a detailed update on the discovery proceedings and a census of the cases filed to date.

More Than 2,800 Uber Sexual Assault Lawsuits Filed

According to the statement, there were at least 2,229 Uber driver sexual assault lawsuits pending in the MDL as of May 27. That number is up 200 cases since just the last status conference. 

In addition, there are an estimated 619 Uber driver lawsuits filed in California state court and consolidated on the state level as part of Judicial Council Coordinated Proceedings (JCCP), the state’s version of an MDL.

The parties report that discovery efforts continue to be “robust,” with a number of technical issues to work out and minor disputes on both sides, some of which the parties say will need to be resolved by Judge Breyer.

Last month, Uber attorneys filed a motion requesting that all 13 bellwether claims be transferred back to their originating states for trial, claiming that plaintiffs agreed to this stipulation by agreeing to Uber’s Terms of Use.  Plaintiffs have opposed the request, and Judge Breyer has yet to issue a ruling.

In this latest report, plaintiffs indicate Uber has still not provided an affirmative defense to the claims filed against it in the bellwether lawsuits. The rideshare service says this is because they are moving to have portions of, or all of, the bellwether claims dismissed and are awaiting the resolution of those dismissal motions.

The company indicates it is willing to provide a list of all affirmative defenses for the first wave of bellwether trials by June 15, but will reserve the right to amend and supplement those defenses in the future. Plaintiffs agreed to the June 15 date, but also asked the Court to allow discovery on those affirmative defenses to extend beyond the current July 16 deadline, given the delay in those defenses being filed.

Although the outcomes of these bellwether trials are not binding on other cases in the litigation, they will be closely watched since the average lawsuit payouts awarded by juries are expected to have a substantial impact on any Uber driver sexual assault settlement negotiations. If no such agreements are reached to resolve large numbers of claims after the bellwether trials, it is likely that Judge Breyer will start remanding thousands of individual cases back to U.S. District Courts nationwide for future trial dates.