Top Uber Executives Must Testify in Rider Sexual Assault Cases

Uber Technologies Inc.'s current CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, former CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick, and other top executives must testify in a sweeping case from over a thousand of Uber passengers who claim they were sexually assaulted by their drivers.

A San Francisco federal judge on Monday rejected Uber’s arguments that its top executives can evade depositions in the case, ruling that requiring senior leaders to answer questions about rider safety policy “is not disproportionate to the needs of this litigation.”

Khosrowshahi, who became Uber’s CEO in 2017, must sit for no more than four hours of deposition, and Kalanick and former CEO Ryan Graves must sit for no more than three hours each, Magistrate Judge Lisa J. Cisneros ruled.

Another four witnesses, including Chief Marketing Officer Jill Hazelbaker and Chief Product Officer Sachin Kansal, must also sit for depositions collectively totaling no more than 18 hours, the judge said.

The deposition order comes as Uber faces almost 2,000 lawsuits from riders across the country who allege the company failed to properly vet drivers who sexually assaulted or raped them. The plaintiffs claim the company owed a duty to mitigate the assaults while deceptively advertising that its service was safe for riders.

The cases were consolidated into a multidistrict litigation in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Some of the claims have since been dismissed.

Uber last week failed to convince the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to split up the cases based on the app’s terms of service agreements.

Cisneros’ Monday ruling rejected Uber’s “apex doctrine” argument, which says that high-ranking corporate executives are generally protected from lawsuit depositions because they are too busy. Her ruling falls in line with a number of recent cases where judges have rejected the application of the apex doctrine to CEOs.

“Plaintiffs allege, and have offered at least some evidence to support, that relevant decisions regarding Uber’s safety policies and representations to the public were made at a very high level,” Cisneros said.

The judge said that although she is putting a time limit on the depositions, she recognizes that corporate executives are often coached by their attorneys to “run out the clock.”

“The Court trusts they will not,” Cisneros said. “Any such efforts to stall or stonewall may result in a witness being recalled for a further full day’s deposition.”

Uber didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise LLP, Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP, and Chaffin Luhana LLP are co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs. Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP represents Uber.

The case is In re: Uber Techs., Inc., Passenger Sexual Assault Litig., N.D. Cal., No. 3:23-md-03084, 3/24/25.