Uber Sexual Assault Lawsuit Set To Go Before Jury in Jan. 2026

Lawyers indicate they need more time to resolve several discovery issues before first bellwether trial can proceed involving allegations that Uber failed to protect passengers from sexual assault by drivers.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all Uber sexual assault lawsuits filed in federal courts has pushed back the first trial over claims the rideshare service failed to protect customers from predatory drivers, vacating the previously scheduled trial date that was expected to get underway on December 8, 2025.

Uber currently faces more than 2,500 lawsuits brought by passengers, who say they were sexually harassed, assaulted, kidnaped or raped by drivers, each raising similar allegations that the rideshare service prioritized profits over passenger safety.

The plaintiffs, mostly women, accuse Uber of failing to take adequate measures to screen drivers, doing only the barest of background checks, failing to provide surveillance cameras for Uber vehicles, failing to put drivers through sexual assault and sexual harassment awareness training, and failing to provide passengers the ability to select the gender of their driver.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in complaints brought over the past few years throughout the federal court system, an Uber sexual assault lawsuit MDL (multidistrict litigation) has been established in the Northern District of California, where U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer is presiding over coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

First Uber Sexual Assault Lawsuit Trial Delayed

Hoping for an early resolution to the litigation, which will not require thousands of expensive and time-consuming federal trials, Judge Breyer has established a “bellwether process,” designed to focus pretrial proceedings on a small group of representative cases, which the parties have been preparing to go before a jury.

The outcome of these bellwether trials will not have any binding effect on the other claims, but they will be closely watched to see how juries respond to evidence and testimony that could likely be repeated throughout the thousands of claims, and the average jury payouts awarded could have a substantial influence on Uber sexual assault settlement negotiations.

In May, Judge Breyer reviewed proposals from both parties for bellwether trial selections and identified six claims that will compose Bellwether Trial Wave 1. He then called on them to select the order in which the six cases should go to trial, with the first previously scheduled to go before a jury on December 8.

For that first trial, plaintiffs and defendants selected a lawsuit brought by Jaylynn Dean, which was originally filed in December 2023. According to her complaint, she was raped by an Uber driver in Arizona in November 2023.

However, both parties asked for more time in a proposed order (PDF) submitted to Judge Breyer last week, citing issues in gathering discovery. Uber argues that evidence on Dean’s smartphone was not preserved, and Dean indicates that she has replaced her phone more than once since the incident. While she backed up her old phone to her new ones, she indicated some of the data was lost due to a lack of storage space.

On August 29, Judge Breyer issued a court order (PDF) agreeing with the delay. The bellwether trial over Dean’s claims has been rescheduled to begin on January 7, 2026.

Following the bellwether trials, if the parties are unable to reach a global agreement to settle Uber sexual assault lawsuits brought by women throughout the U.S., Judge Breyer may begin remanding hundreds of individual cases back to U.S. District Courts nationwide for separate trial dates in the future.