Sexual assault victims suing Uber notch a legal victory in long battle

Hundreds of women have filed lawsuits against Uber alleging the company hasn't done enough to protect passengers from sexual assault. Now, a judge has ruled that about 80 of those cases can be joined together in federal court.

All of the pretrial matters will be heard under Judge Charles Breyer in the Northern District of California. That includes witness and expert depositions and document discovery.

"This is a big deal because those documents are going to help show, we believe, that the sexual assault problem from drivers to riders is a massive problem," says Bret Stanley, attorney for Texas firm Kherkher Garcia, who's representing several of the victims.

The cases still will ultimately go to trial in their respective state jurisdictions, and they span at least 16 states. The incidents cover everything from alleged groping to kidnapping to rape.

The victims allege that Uber has the capacity to make rides safer, but its response to these incidents has been slow and inadequate. They claim Uber does substandard background checks and doesn't always remove drivers after sexual assault allegations.

"They're collecting this data, allowing the person to stay on the system," says Stanley. "And then something terrible happens."

Uber has been sued countless times over the past several years by passengers who allege they were sexually assaulted while using the app. But this is the first time a federal judge will be able to make decisions for all of these cases and streamline the proceedings. A consolidated lawsuit has been filed against Uber in California, but it's for victims only in that state. And Lyft has faced similar lawsuits.

Under Uber's terms of use, class action lawsuits can't be filed against the company in cases of sexual assault. So each case has to be heard individually. That means victims haven't been able to advocate for themselves as a group.

Uber has tried to stop the consolidation of these cases. In several filings for a motion to dismiss, the company argues it "did not owe a duty to Plaintiff to protect against the criminal conduct" and these lawsuits share little in common.

"Sexual assault is a horrific crime, and we take every report of this nature very seriously," Uber spokesperson Gabriela Condarco-Quesada wrote in an email to NPR. "While we cannot comment on pending litigation, we are deeply committed to the safety of all users on the Uber platform."

After news reports in 2018 revealed that more than 100 women had been sexually assaulted during Uber rides, Uber began to focus more on ride safety. It introduced several in-app safety features, like a 9-1-1 button and a way for friends or family members to monitor rides in real-time. It also produced its first-ever safety report that tallied data on alleged sexual assaults during its rides.

Data from its latest report in 2020 and its previous report in 2018 shows there were 9,805 sexual assaults in its rides from 2017 to 2020, which included 852 incidents of rape.

The case against Uber could grow as more victims file lawsuits against the company and seek to join the coordinated proceedings.