By bizn_fun 
The plaintiff, Jaylynn Dean, said she was sexually assaulted in the car, while taking an Uber to her hotel in 2023. She said Uber had been aware of a wave of sexual assaults committed by its drivers but had not taken basic action to improve safety.
The jury found the company was liable under the apparent agency doctrine – meaning Uber was held responsible for the driver’s actions while he worked on the company’s behalf – resulting in the $8.5m in compensatory damages.
It did not back Dean’s claim for more than $144m in punitive damages against the firm.
A lead lawyer for Dean said the decision “validates the thousands of survivors who have come forward at great personal risk”.
Attorney Sarah London added that justice would “ultimately be measured by the outcomes of the ongoing litigation and whether meaningful safety reforms are implemented to protect passengers going forward”.
Dean’s lawsuit was among the first in a selection of 20 so-called “bellwether” cases against Uber set to go to trial one after another.
These are expected to set some precedent for decisions in roughly 2,500 other federal court cases in which plaintiffs are making similar claims against Uber.
Another of Dean’s lawyers, Alexandra Walsh, said in court that Uber had marketed itself as a safe option for women travelling alone at night.
“Women know it’s a dangerous world. We know about the risk of sexual assault,” Walsh said. “They made us believe that this was a place that was safe from that.”