By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) -The federal judge overseeing more than 2,300 lawsuits seeking to hold Uber liable to passengers who were sexually assaulted or harassed by drivers dismissed some key claims in the nationwide litigation.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco rejected some fraud and product liability claims on Tuesday.
His decision addressing 20 “bellwether” Uber cases could be a template for similar cases against the San Francisco-based ride-sharing company. A trial is scheduled for December 8.
Lawyers for passengers did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. Uber and its lawyers did not immediately respond to similar requests.
Passengers said “Designated Driver” ads promoting Uber as a safe alternative to drunk driving should have disclosed that intoxicated people, especially women and especially late at night, faced an elevated risk of sexual assault by drivers.
The passengers also said app notifications containing Uber drivers’ names, photos and “star ratings” should have disclosed drivers’ prior misconduct and criminal histories.
In his 37-page decision, Breyer dismissed fraud claims based on ads saying “Don’t drink and drive, call an Uber” and “Stay safe tonight. Use Uber.”
The judge said reasonable consumers would view those ads merely as encouragement to use Uber, rather than drive drunk.
But he also said Uber’s handling of app notifications “could form a deceptive scheme to obfuscate the risk of serious harm” when women accepted rides from drivers with histories of misconduct.
Uber said it did not intend to fraudulently withhold information, and no passengers claimed they relied on the app notifications.
Breyer also dismissed claims that Uber’s app was defective because it failed to prevent high-risk pairings of drivers and passengers.
He refused to dismiss product liability claims based on the app’s lacking a feature to match passengers with drivers of the same gender.
The judge previously dismissed some other claims in the bellwether cases.
In its U.S. safety report for 2021 and 2022, Uber said it received 2,717 reported incidents of the most serious categories of sexual assault and misconduct.
Uber also said only 0.1% of the more than 1.8 billion U.S. trips in those years had reported safety incidents, mainly about “minor” issues such as complaints about driving or verbal arguments.
The case is In re Uber Technologies Inc Passenger Sexual Assault Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 23-03084.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)
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