Phoenix Jury Orders Uber to Pay $8.5M in Assault Case

A federal jury in Phoenix, Arizona, ordered Uber Technologies Inc. to pay $8.5 million in compensatory damages to a woman who alleged she was sexually assaulted by one of its drivers in 2023, marking the first trial in a wave of more than 3,000 similar lawsuits against the ride-hailing company.

The verdict, delivered on Thursday, came in the case of Jaylynn Dean, an Oklahoma resident who was 19 at the time of the incident. Dean claimed the assault occurred during an Uber ride in Tempe, Arizona, as she traveled intoxicated from her boyfriend's apartment to her hotel. According to her lawsuit, the driver stopped the vehicle, asked harassing questions and raped her. The nine-person jury found Uber liable because the driver acted as an apparent agent of the company, holding it responsible for his conduct. However, the panel rejected Dean's additional claims that Uber was negligent in its safety practices or that its app constituted a defective product. It also declined to impose punitive damages, awarding far less than the more than $140 million sought by Dean's attorneys for past and future mental health harms.

The trial served as a bellwether, designed to test legal arguments and...