Riders in Uber Rape Class Action Lawsuit Agree to End Claims

Top Class Actions’s website and social media posts use affiliate links. If you make a purchase using such links, we may receive a commission, but it will not result in any additional charges to you. Please review our Affiliate Link Disclosure for more information.

Uber riders who filed a class action lawsuit arguing that the ride-hailing service didn’t do enough to prevent rape and sexual assault of its passengers by drivers have agreed to have their claims dismissed.

U.S. District Court Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers agreed to the Uber passengers’ request to have their claims dismissed  and the case will be dropped without costs or attorneys’ fees assigned to either party.

In November 2017, two anonymous plaintiffs filed the Uber class action lawsuit over allegations that the company did not do sufficient background checks of their drivers.

The plaintiffs claimed that the company’s negligence led to thousands of passengers being sexually assaulted, raped, or subjected to other sexual violence by their Uber driver.

After the suit was initial filed, it was amended in March 2018 and gained seven new anonymous plaintiffs.

The amended Uber sexual violence class action lawsuit argued that “since Uber launched in 2010, thousands of female passengers have endured unlawful conduct by their Uber drivers, including rape, sexual assault, kidnapping, physical violence, and gender-motivated harassment.”

The passengers claim that the problem has not gotten better as Uber has developed, claiming instead that “as the number of drivers increase, the number of reported sexual assaults and rapes of female passengers by male Uber drivers has skyrocketed.”

The Uber sexual assault class action lawsuit argues that Uber did not respond appropriately to the problem, and should have made “drastic changes” to how it vets drivers.

Instead, the company continued to used a cheap background check method that was inefficient and ineffective, the Uber class action states.

Additionally, the Uber passenger assault class action lawsuit says that the company fails to monitor drivers once they have cleared a background check and have begun to work for the company.

Allegedly, this has exposed many passengers to violence by their drivers. The passengers argue that the company should have changed its safety procedures.

After their initial claims, Uber requested that the court send the consumers’ claims of insufficient background checks to arbitration, because the customers had cited the California Consumer Legal Remedies Act and Section 1700 of the state’s Business and Professional Code, urging the court to require that the company improve its background check policy for drivers. 

Fighting back, the passengers told a federal judge in May to not send part of their Uber class action lawsuit to arbitration, stating that the company’s allegedly insufficient background checks belong in court instead of in arbitration, because they have a better chance of improving the public good if taken to public court and the passengers win injunctive relief.

The Uber passengers are represented by Jeanne Christensen and Kenneth Walsh of Wigdor LLP and by Jamie Couche of Anderson & Poole PC.

The Uber Assault Class Action Lawsuit is Jane Doe 1, et al. v. Uber Technologies Inc., Case No. 4:17-cv-06571, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.