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Uber Technologies Inc. was unsuccessful in its effort to convince a federal court to postpone the second jury trial to date involving the company’s potential legal responsibility in a case where an Arizona woman alleges she was raped by her Uber driver, Bloomberg Law reported.
In a Monday order, Judge Charles Breyer denied Uber’s request for a continuance. The ruling did not include an explanation for the decision. In the same order, the judge also rejected Uber’s attempt to block an advocacy advertising campaign that draws attention to allegations of widespread sexual assault involving Uber drivers, as well as the company’s request to subpoena the Consumer Attorneys of California, the organization that helped fund the ads.
As a result of the ruling, Uber will now proceed to trial to face the claims of Jaylynn Dean. Dean alleges that Uber failed to implement adequate safety policies and protections to prevent a driver from raping her after she used the rideshare service to request a late-night ride from a bar.
This case marks the first federal bellwether trial among nearly 3,000 sexual assault lawsuits that have been filed nationwide and consolidated before Judge Breyer in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Although the multidistrict litigation is based in San Francisco, the January 13 trial will be held in Arizona, where Dean originally filed her lawsuit.
Many of the plaintiffs in the litigation are women who argue that Uber relied on minimal background screening, failed to train its drivers in sexual harassment and assault awareness, did not install in vehicle surveillance cameras, and did not provide an option for women to choose the gender of their driver.
Uber also requested that the Court allow lawyers to question potential jurors, and sought an order to restrain the ad campaign in states where the first wave of bellwether trials is expected to take place.
Plaintiffs opposed the motion and noted that the Court has already finalized and distributed juror questionnaires. They stated that Uber is free to question jurors about possible bias. They further argued that the gag order request attempted to interfere with the First Amendment rights of an outside advocacy organization, calling the effort “outlandish.”
“Uber’s eleventh hour attempt to delay the first bellwether trial in this MDL is meritless. Uber does not establish any basis to vacate Plaintiff Dean’s trial date, which would severely prejudice her right to an expedient trial of her claims and derail the expeditious resolution of this MDL,” stated the plaintiffs’ opposition to defendants’ motion.
What comes next in the Uber sexual assault lawsuits
The outcomes of the bellwether trials will not directly determine the results of other cases in the litigation. However, the verdicts are expected to influence future negotiations and may guide the structure of any potential settlement discussions. If settlement efforts do not move forward after the bellwether trials, individual claims may be returned to their original courts for trial.
Separate from the federal proceedings, hundreds of additional lawsuits have been filed in California state court. The first Uber sexual assault trial in that jurisdiction took place in September. Jurors found that Uber was negligent in failing to protect passengers, but also determined that the negligence did not substantially contribute to the assault, meaning the company was not held liable for damages in that case.
