Uber Lawsuit Over Driver Sexually Assaulting Passenger To Go Before Jury in December 2025

Judge indicates he intends to hold five “waves” of bellwether trials, with a total of 20 Uber lawsuits eligible to go before juries as test cases.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all lawsuits alleging Uber drivers sexually assaulted passengers has announced that the first bellwether trial will begin in December 2025, with several “waves” of cases slated to move forward to gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the litigation.

There are currrently more than 1,900 Uber lawsuits filed in the federal court system, each raising similar allegations that passengers were sexually assaulted, harassed, or raped by drivers while using the popular rideshare app. Plaintiffs maintain that Uber bears responsibility for the attacks, since it failed to enact adequate measures to screen drivers and prevent Uber passengers from being sexually assaulted.

Although Uber implemented “Safe Ride Fees” in 2014, plaintiffs argue that the company never actually used the funds to make passengers safer, providing only the most basic background checks for drivers. The company also failed to provide surveillance cameras inside of cars, did not allow passengers to make requests regarding the gender of drivers, and failed to train drivers on issues of sexual assault and harassment, according to the lawsuits.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in complaints brought throughout the federal court system, an Uber driver sexual assault MDL (Multidistrict Litigation) was established in October 2023, centralizing all claims before U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer in the Northern District of California, for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

To help manage the litigation, Judge Breyer established a “bellwether” process, where the parties were directed to identify a small group of representative claims, which are being prepared for a series of early test trials, which could help drive Uber sexual assault settlement negotiations in other similar cases.

First Uber Lawsuit Bellwether Trial

In December 2024, Judge Breyer called on lawyers to identify a group of 20 Uber sex abuse lawsuits, with each side selecting 10 cases that are now going through case-specific discovery, expert work-up and pretrial motions.

Earlier this month, Judge Breyer issued a pretrial order (PDF) announcing that there will be five “waves” of bellwether trials, with the first lawsuit set to go before a jury on December 8, 2025.

The order rejected a request by plaintiffs to hold consolidated bellwether trials, which would have involved multiple plaintiffs in each trial, indicating that he believes “consolidation would impair the effectiveness of the bellwether process.”

While no specific case has been identified for the first Uber lawsuit bellwether trial, Judge Breyer split the 20 claims into five “waves,” indicating that parties should be prepared to try each case within a given wave on the same designated date, to ensure no scheduled trials need to be postponed or canceled.

“These proposed trial waves are designed to prioritize trying the bellwether cases with the broadest range of liability theories and challenged safety features,” said Judge Breyer in the order issued on April 14. “Should the first case within a trial wave settle prior to the trial date, the parties will proceed to the second case, and so on down the line.”

Renewed Motion To Dismiss Uber Lawsuits

A day after the pretrial order was issued, Uber filed a new motion to dismiss (PDF) a number of the bellwether lawsuits, arguing that amended complaints filed by plaintiffs fail to adequately plead their case.

Uber is calling for the dismissal with prejudice of all fraud and misrepresentation claims, partial dismissal of product liability claims, and any claims based on “nonphysical injuries” linked to Uber drivers sexually assaulting passengers.

“As in the Master Complaint, these basic pleading deficiencies foreclose many of Plaintiffs’ claims against Uber,” the motion states. “The inadequately alleged fraud, product-liability, negligence, and vicarious-liability theories should now be dismissed with prejudice.”

Plaintiffs have not yet responded to this latest motion.

If the bellwether trials move forward as planned, the outcomes will not have any binding effect on other claims being pursued by passengers who were sexually assaulted by Uber drivers. However, average lawsuit payouts awarded by juries is expected to have a substantial impact on any Uber sexual assault settlement negotiations, which will be necessary to avoid the need for hundreds of individual cases to be remanded back to U.S. District Courts nationwide for future trial dates.