If you or someone you love was sexually assaulted, harassed, or violated by an Uber driver in California, you may feel alone, confused, and overwhelmed. You are not alone. Thousands of survivors across the country have come forward against Uber, and the law is firmly on your side in ways that may surprise you.

This page explains everything you need to know: how widespread this problem is, how Uber has tried to evade accountability, how recent federal law now gives you the right to bring your case to a jury, and what your legal options look like right now.

Our firm — Steven M. Sweat, Personal Injury Lawyers, APC — has represented victims of serious personal injuries in Los Angeles and across California for over 30 years. We have handled catastrophic injury cases, wrongful death claims, and complex liability matters involving corporations that prioritized profit over people’s safety. We take these cases on a contingency-fee basis — you pay nothing unless we recover for you.

The Scope of the Problem: Uber’s Own Data Is Damning

For years, Uber kept its safety data secret. It took years of public pressure, advocacy, and litigation to force the company to release its U.S. Safety Reports. When those reports came out, the numbers were staggering.

According to Uber’s own disclosures, the company received 12,522 reports of sexual assault across five categories between 2017 and 2022. The five most serious categories tracked include non-consensual kissing of a non-sexual body part, attempted non-consensual sexual penetration, non-consensual sexual penetration, non-consensual touching of a sexual body part, and non-consensual kissing of a sexual body part.

Breaking that down further: across the years covered in Uber’s reports, there were multiple reports of the most serious categories of assault every single day across the United States. Critics and survivor advocates note that reported incidents almost certainly represent a fraction of actual incidents, given that many victims do not report due to shame, fear, distrust of authorities, or concern that they will not be believed.

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center estimates that the majority of sexual assaults are never reported to police. RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) data consistently shows significant underreporting of sexual violence nationally. When applied to rideshare data, this means the true number of Uber-related sexual assaults is almost certainly far higher than what the company’s reports reflect.

If you or a loved one has been a victim of this kind of violence, you should know that you have legal rights and there are attorneys ready to fight for you. See our overview of rideshare accident liability in California for broader context on holding these companies accountable.

Thousands of Survivors Are Suing Uber: The Current Litigation Landscape

Federal Multidistrict Litigation (MDL)

Beginning around 2022, hundreds of sexual assault lawsuits against Uber were consolidated into a federal Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) proceeding in the Northern District of California. By 2024 and into 2025–2026, that MDL has grown to include thousands of plaintiffs, making it one of the largest personal injury MDLs in recent history involving a technology company.

An MDL is a procedural mechanism that allows cases with common questions of fact to be transferred to one federal district for coordinated pretrial proceedings — depositions, document discovery, and motions practice. While cases are consolidated for these purposes, each plaintiff’s case retains its individual character and can ultimately be tried separately.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers California and most of the Western United States, has allowed large waves of these claims to proceed, including rejecting attempts by Uber to use its arbitration clause to block survivors from having their day in court (a topic we address in depth below).

California State Court Activity

In addition to the federal MDL, numerous lawsuits have been filed in California state courts, including Los Angeles County Superior Court. California law provides robust protections for survivors of sexual assault, including a favorable statute of limitations and strong negligence standards applicable to transportation network companies (TNCs) like Uber.

California’s statute of limitations for sexual assault claims was significantly expanded through AB 1619 and related legislation, allowing adult survivors more time to come forward. If you are considering a personal injury lawsuit in California, it is critical that you speak with an attorney as soon as possible to protect your rights.

Jury Verdicts and Settlements: What Are These Cases Worth?

$8.5 Million Federal Verdict (2026)

In 2026, a federal jury in Arizona returned a verdict of approximately $8.5 million against Uber in a sexual assault case brought by a rideshare passenger. The verdict — one of the first bellwether verdicts in the federal Uber sexual assault litigation — sent a powerful signal about how juries evaluate Uber’s conduct and what they are willing to award survivors.

Bellwether trials are test cases selected from a larger MDL to help the parties gauge how juries respond to the evidence. The results of bellwether trials typically drive settlement negotiations for the hundreds or thousands of other cases waiting in the MDL. A significant plaintiff’s verdict, like the $8.5 million Arizona result, typically accelerates settlement discussions and may increase the overall value of pending claims.

Cases Where Uber Has Avoided Liability: A Contrast

Not every case results in a plaintiff’s verdict. Courts have dismissed or ruled against plaintiffs in cases where: (1) the plaintiff could not establish that Uber had prior notice of the specific driver’s dangerous propensities; (2) the assault occurred in circumstances that severed the connection to Uber’s platform; or (3) the independent contractor defense was successfully raised on the specific facts.

Understanding why some cases succeed and others do not requires a careful analysis of the specific facts, the evidence of Uber’s knowledge, the driver’s background check history, and whether proper legal theories were asserted. This is why having an experienced trial attorney — not just a case aggregator — is critical in these cases.

How Can Uber Be Held Legally Liable? The Legal Theories Explained

Uber typically argues that its drivers are independent contractors, not employees, and that it therefore bears no responsibility for their conduct. California courts — and increasingly federal courts applying California law — have pushed back hard on this argument. There are multiple legal pathways to hold Uber accountable.

1. Negligent Hiring and Retention

Uber has a legal duty to exercise reasonable care in selecting drivers who will transport members of the public. This includes conducting thorough background checks and refusing to allow dangerous individuals to drive on the platform. When Uber’s background check process fails to screen out drivers with histories of violence, prior sexual offenses, or other warning signs — or when Uber continues to employ a driver after red flags emerge — the company may be liable for negligent hiring or retention.

Evidence in the federal MDL and various state court cases has raised serious questions about the adequacy of Uber’s driver screening process. For more on how these claims work, see our discussion of negligent hiring and retention in California personal injury cases.

2. Failure to Conduct Adequate Background Checks

Uber’s background check system has been widely criticized as inadequate compared to the standards applied to traditional taxi and transportation companies. Unlike taxi companies, which have historically been required to submit drivers for live-scan fingerprint-based background checks through state and federal criminal databases, Uber has relied on third-party software-based checks that critics say miss serious criminal history.

California regulators and plaintiffs’ counsel have highlighted cases where drivers with prior sexual offense histories passed Uber’s screening process and later assaulted passengers.

3. Failure to Respond to Prior Complaints

In cases where Uber received prior complaints about a driver — whether for inappropriate behavior, touching, or other misconduct — and failed to investigate or remove that driver, the company may be liable for its failure to act. This theory is particularly powerful when there is documentary evidence of prior complaints in Uber’s own records.

4. Apparent/Ostensible Agency

Even if Uber’s drivers are technically independent contractors, the company may still be liable under the doctrine of apparent or ostensible agency. Under this theory, because Uber presents drivers to the public as part of its service, controls the customer experience through its app, and creates the reasonable impression that drivers are its agents, Uber may be held responsible for drivers’ conduct within the scope of the rideshare.

5. Product Liability — App Design and Safety Failures

Uber’s app is the product that connects passengers and drivers. Plaintiffs have argued — with increasing success — that Uber’s app was defectively designed in ways that created unreasonable safety risks: for example, by insufficiently vetting drivers, failing to provide in-app safety mechanisms, failing to warn passengers of risks, and implementing features (like the ability to use aliases or to arrive in unmarked vehicles) that made it harder for passengers to verify driver identity or safety.

How to Fight Uber’s Arbitration Clause — And Why You Can Win

One of the most important and misunderstood issues in Uber sexual assault litigation is the arbitration clause buried in Uber’s Terms of Service. For years, Uber used this clause to drag survivors out of court and into private arbitration proceedings — proceedings that tend to favor large corporations, are not public, and that historically produced lower recoveries for plaintiffs.

The good news: the legal landscape has fundamentally changed, and in multiple ways.

What Is Uber’s Arbitration Clause?

When you download the Uber app and accept its Terms of Service, you agree to a clause requiring that virtually all disputes between you and Uber be resolved through binding arbitration rather than court litigation. Arbitration is a private dispute resolution process conducted before a neutral arbitrator — not a judge or jury. The clause also typically contains a class action waiver, preventing passengers from joining together in group lawsuits.

Uber has historically used this clause aggressively to move sexual assault cases out of court and into arbitration, where proceedings are confidential, verdicts are smaller, and there is no right to a jury trial. For survivors, this has meant that their cases — and Uber’s pattern of conduct — stayed hidden from public view.

The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021

The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (the “EFASASHA” or the “Act”) is one of the most significant pieces of legislation for sexual assault survivors in recent American history. Here is what it means for you:

• The Act invalidates pre-dispute arbitration agreements as applied to sexual assault and sexual harassment claims. This means that even if you previously agreed to Uber’s Terms of Service containing an arbitration clause, that clause cannot be enforced against you in a sexual assault case.
• You now have the legal right to bring your sexual assault claim in court — before a judge and jury — instead of in private arbitration, regardless of what Uber’s Terms of Service say.
• The Act applies to all cases where the sexual assault or harassment conduct at issue occurred on or after March 3, 2022 (the date the Act was signed into law). Courts have also applied it in certain cases with earlier conduct.
• The law expressly applies to rideshare companies like Uber. The fact that Uber has attempted to characterize its drivers as independent contractors does not remove it from the Act’s reach when the claim arises from use of Uber’s platform.
• Plaintiffs can affirmatively choose litigation even if they previously agreed to arbitration in Uber’s Terms of Service. This is a plaintiff’s election — you get to decide.

The practical significance of this law cannot be overstated. Before the Act, Uber’s arbitration clause was one of its most powerful weapons against survivors. The Act strips that weapon away. Survivors now have access to:

• Public jury trials, where Uber’s pattern of conduct can be examined openly
• Larger verdicts, including punitive damages, which are more likely from juries than from arbitrators
• Public accountability — court proceedings are not confidential, unlike arbitration
• Class and mass action procedures, allowing survivors to act collectively

Additional Strategies to Challenge Uber’s Arbitration Clause

Even in cases where the EFASASHA’s direct application is contested, experienced plaintiffs’ attorneys have multiple additional tools to fight arbitration:

• Lack of Informed Consent: Uber’s Terms of Service are lengthy, complex, and presented in a manner that makes it virtually impossible for ordinary consumers to understand or meaningfully consent to the arbitration clause. Courts have found lack of consent where arbitration terms were not adequately disclosed.
• Procedural Unconscionability: If the manner in which Uber presented its arbitration agreement was oppressive — through a take-it-or-leave-it contract with no meaningful ability to negotiate — courts may decline to enforce it.
• Substantive Unconscionability: If the terms of the arbitration clause are grossly one-sided in favor of Uber, California courts have authority to refuse enforcement under Civil Code Section 1670.5.
• Claims Outside the Scope of the Agreement: Not every claim arising from an Uber ride is necessarily covered by the arbitration clause. Careful legal analysis can sometimes identify claims — particularly those involving third-party defendants or California statutory claims — that are not subject to arbitration.
• App-Based Contract Formation Challenges: Courts scrutinize whether the manner of presenting the terms of service on a mobile app actually resulted in a valid, enforceable contract under California law.
• MDL Procedural Posture: Cases coordinated in the federal MDL may be subject to different procedural rules that limit or modify the applicability of the arbitration clause in the MDL context.

What Compensation Is Available to Survivors?

Survivors of sexual assault by Uber drivers may be entitled to significant compensation across multiple categories of damages. Unlike some personal injury cases, these cases can involve both economic and non-economic harm of extraordinary magnitude — as well as punitive damages designed to punish Uber’s conduct.

Economic Damages

• Medical expenses: Emergency care, trauma counseling, psychiatric treatment, ongoing therapy, medications
• Future medical costs: Long-term psychological treatment, which may be required for years or decades
• Lost wages: Time missed from work due to trauma, treatment, and recovery
• Lost earning capacity: If the psychological impact of the assault has permanently impaired the victim’s ability to work

Non-Economic Damages

• Pain and suffering: Physical and emotional pain caused by the assault itself
• PTSD and psychological trauma: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder is extremely common among sexual assault survivors and can be permanently disabling
• Emotional distress: Anxiety, depression, fear, and other psychological harms
• Loss of enjoyment of life: The impact on the victim’s relationships, daily life, and personal autonomy
• Humiliation and shame: The personal dignity harms caused by sexual violence

Punitive Damages

In cases where Uber’s conduct is found to be oppressive, fraudulent, or malicious — for example, where Uber consciously disregarded known risks of assault — California law allows juries to award punitive damages above and beyond compensatory damages. Punitive damages are designed to punish the defendant and deter future misconduct. In cases involving large corporations like Uber, punitive awards can be substantial.

The $8.5 million verdict in the Arizona federal bellwether case is a data point about what juries are willing to do when confronted with evidence of Uber’s conduct. In California, where juries have historically been willing to hold corporations accountable for systemic failures, the potential for significant verdicts is real.

To understand how damages work in serious injury cases more broadly, see our resources on catastrophic injury cases in California and our case results.

Why Are Uber Sexual Assault Lawsuits Increasing?

The number of lawsuits filed against Uber for sexual assault has grown dramatically in recent years. Several factors explain this trend:

The Gig Economy and Reduced Accountability

Uber’s business model relies on recruiting large numbers of drivers with minimal vetting and onboarding. By classifying drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, Uber sought to reduce its costs and its legal liability simultaneously. Critics argue this model created a structural incentive to under-invest in safety in order to maximize growth. As litigation has proceeded, the factual record has supported this concern.

Inadequate Safety Systems

Uber’s app and platform were not originally designed with passenger safety — particularly the safety of vulnerable passengers traveling alone at night — as a priority. Critics have pointed to the lack of fingerprint-based background checks, the ease with which disqualified drivers could re-register, the insufficient response to prior safety complaints, and the absence of robust in-app emergency features as evidence of systemic failures.

Increased Reporting and Legal Awareness

The #MeToo movement and increased public awareness of sexual violence has empowered survivors to come forward who might previously have stayed silent. Organizations that advocate for survivors have publicized the legal options available to Uber assault victims. The creation of the federal MDL has made it easier for survivors across the country to participate in litigation without bearing the full financial burden of individual lawsuits.

Additionally, the passage of the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 removed one of Uber’s most powerful barriers to litigation, opening courthouse doors that were previously slammed shut.

California-Specific Considerations: Los Angeles and Beyond

California is one of the most active states for Uber sexual assault litigation, and Los Angeles — as one of the largest rideshare markets in the world — has seen a significant volume of these cases filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

California Statute of Limitations for Sexual Assault Claims

California has enacted strong protections for adult survivors of sexual assault. Under California Code of Civil Procedure Section 340.16 (as amended by AB 1619), adult survivors of sexual assault generally have 10 years from the date of the assault, or 3 years from the date they discovered (or reasonably should have discovered) an injury caused by the assault, to file a lawsuit — whichever is later.

This is a generous statute of limitations compared to many other states. However, the clock is still running. Evidence can be lost, witnesses’ memories fade, and Uber’s own records are subject to retention policies that may result in data being deleted. The sooner you consult with an attorney, the better your position.

Transportation Network Company (TNC) Regulations in California

California was among the first states to extensively regulate transportation network companies through the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). TNC regulations impose specific requirements on companies like Uber, including background check standards, driver screening procedures, and safety reporting obligations. Violations of these regulatory requirements can be evidence of negligence in civil litigation.

Our firm has extensive experience handling Uber and Lyft accident cases in Los Angeles and understands both the regulatory landscape and the litigation tactics these companies use in California courts.

Frequently Asked Questions: Suing Uber for Sexual Assault in California

Q: Can Uber be held legally liable for a sexual assault committed by one of its drivers?

A: Yes, in many cases. While Uber argues its drivers are independent contractors, there are multiple legal theories under which Uber can be held liable: negligent hiring and retention, failure to conduct adequate background checks, failure to respond to prior complaints, apparent/ostensible agency, and product liability based on defective app design. Whether Uber is ultimately held liable depends on the specific facts of your case, the evidence of Uber’s prior knowledge, and the legal theories advanced. This is why it is essential to work with an experienced trial attorney.

Q: Can I sue Uber in court, or do I have to go to arbitration?

A: Thanks to the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021, you have the right to bring your sexual assault claim in court rather than arbitration, even if you agreed to Uber’s Terms of Service. This landmark federal law invalidates pre-dispute arbitration agreements for sexual assault claims, giving you access to a jury trial and all the protections of the public court system.

Q: What is my case worth?

A: The value of a sexual assault case against Uber depends on many factors, including the severity of the assault, the psychological harm suffered, the economic impact on the victim, the strength of the evidence against Uber, and the jurisdiction where the case is tried. In 2026, a federal jury awarded $8.5 million in an Uber sexual assault case. California juries have historically been willing to hold corporations accountable. There is no standard formula — the right answer requires a careful evaluation of your specific case by an experienced attorney.

Q: How does the 2021 federal arbitration law affect my case?

A: The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 means that Uber cannot force you into private arbitration on your sexual assault claim. You can bring your case in court, before a judge and jury, in public proceedings. This is a fundamental change from the prior legal landscape and a major advantage for plaintiffs. The law applies to cases where the sexual assault occurred on or after March 3, 2022, and courts have continued to interpret its reach broadly.

Q: What if I waited a long time to come forward?

A: California’s statute of limitations for sexual assault is generally 10 years from the date of the assault or 3 years from discovery, whichever is later. You may still have time to file a lawsuit even if the assault occurred years ago. However, you should consult with an attorney immediately — evidence preservation is critical, and waiting any longer may jeopardize your case.

Q: Do I have to pay anything to have an attorney evaluate my case?

A: No. Our firm handles Uber sexual assault cases on a contingency-fee basis. This means you pay nothing upfront and nothing out of pocket. We are only paid if and when we recover money for you. Your initial consultation is completely free and confidential.

Q: Is my case part of the federal MDL?

A: Potentially. Many Uber sexual assault cases in federal court have been or are eligible to be transferred to the federal MDL in the Northern District of California. Whether your case belongs in the MDL or in California state court (or both) depends on your specific circumstances. An experienced attorney can advise you on the best procedural strategy.

Q: What evidence do I need for a sexual assault case against Uber?

A: Key evidence in these cases includes: your own testimony and written account of the assault; the Uber trip records showing the date, time, driver, and route; any communications with Uber following the incident; medical or counseling records documenting the physical and psychological harm; police reports if you reported to law enforcement; any prior complaints about the same driver in Uber’s records; and evidence of Uber’s background check policies and procedures. An attorney can help you preserve and obtain this evidence through the legal process.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: The information contained in this article is provided for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed by reading this content. Prior results in cases described do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter. Every case is different. You should consult with a licensed attorney regarding the specific facts of your situation. Steven M. Sweat, Personal Injury Lawyers, APC is licensed to practice law in the State of California.