A U.S. jury on Thursday ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million in damages after concluding that the ride-hailing company was liable in a lawsuit filed by a woman who said she was sexually assaulted by an Uber driver at age 19.
The verdict is being closely watched, as it may shape the outcome of thousands of similar claims pending against the company across the United States.
The lawsuit was filed by Jaylynn Dean and marked the first bellwether trial among more than 3,000 comparable cases that have been consolidated in U.S. federal court. Such trials are designed to test legal arguments and provide a benchmark for how juries may value claims, often guiding negotiations toward broader settlements.
In federal court in Phoenix, Arizona, jurors concluded that the driver was acting as an agent of Uber, making the company responsible for his conduct.
The jury awarded Dean $8.5 million in compensatory damages but stopped short of imposing punitive damages. Her legal team had asked the court to award more than $140 million.
Uber’s stock slipped about 1.5% in after-hours trading following the verdict. Shares of competitor Lyft, which is also dealing with lawsuits raising similar allegations, fell roughly 1.8%.
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In a statement, an Uber spokesperson said the company plans to appeal the decision and emphasized that the jury dismissed Dean’s other allegations, including claims that Uber was negligent or that its safety systems were flawed.
“This verdict affirms that Uber acted responsibly and has invested meaningfully in rider safety,” the spokesperson said, quoted by Reuters.
Sarah London, an attorney for Dean, stated the verdict “validates the thousands of survivors who have come forward at great personal risk to demand accountability against Uber for its focus on profit over passenger safety.”
Dean, who lives in Oklahoma, filed her lawsuit against Uber in 2023, about a month after the alleged assault took place in Arizona. She argued that Uber knew sexual assaults by drivers were a persistent problem but failed to take basic steps to better protect riders. Claims like these have followed the company for years, prompting repeated headlines and even scrutiny from Congress.
During closing arguments, Dean’s attorney, Alexandra Walsh, told the jury that Uber had promoted itself as a safe choice for women traveling at night, especially those who had been drinking.
“Women know it’s a dangerous world. We know about the risk of sexual assault,” according to Walsh. “They made us believe that this was a place that was safe from that.”
Uber, which has been repeatedly criticized over safety issues, including claims of weak driver screening and a culture that critics say put rapid growth ahead of rider safety, has maintained that it should not be held responsible for criminal acts committed by drivers using its platform. The company has argued that its background checks and its disclosures related to assault reports are adequate.
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The company has also argued that its drivers are independent contractors, not employees, and that even aside from how they are classified, Uber should not be held accountable for conduct that goes beyond what could reasonably be seen as part of a driver’s role.
During closing arguments, Uber attorney Kim Bueno stressed that the driver had no prior criminal record and pointed to his track record on the platform. “He had no criminal history. None,” she told the jury, adding that he had completed about 10,000 trips and maintained an almost flawless rider rating. “Was this foreseeable to Uber? And the answer to that has to be no.”
In her lawsuit, Dean said she was intoxicated when she booked an Uber to take her from her boyfriend’s home to her hotel. She alleged that the driver made harassing remarks during the ride, then stopped the vehicle and raped her.
The case was overseen in Phoenix by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who typically sits in San Francisco. Breyer is also overseeing the thousands of related federal lawsuits against Uber that have been consolidated in his court there.
Uber is also defending itself against more than 500 lawsuits in California state courts. Of those, only one has gone to trial so far, and a jury in September 2025 ruled in the company’s favor. While jurors determined that Uber had been negligent in its safety practices, they concluded that the negligence did not play a significant role in causing the woman’s injuries.