Uber Fails to Delay Sexual Assault Trial or Block Ad Campaign

Uber Technologies Inc. was unable to convince a federal court to delay the second-ever jury trial, scheduled to begin next week, involving Uber’s legal liability in a case where an Arizona woman alleges she was raped by her Uber driver.

Judge Charles Breyer didn’t provide an explanation in his Monday order denying Uber’s request for a postponement. In the same order, the judge also denied the company’s request to block ads highlighting Uber’s alleged sexual assault problems and subpoena the Consumer Attorneys of California, a plaintiff-side attorney association funding the ad campaign.

The order means Uber must face the claims of Jaylynn Dean, a woman who alleges Uber failed to implement proper safety measures to prevent a her driver from raping her after she called an Uber to give her a ride from a bar late at night.

It’s the first federal bellwether trial out of almost 3,000 similar sexual assault lawsuits filed around the country and consolidated before Breyer, who sits on the San Francisco-based US District Court for the Northern District of California. The Jan. 13 trial will take place in Arizona, where Dean first filed the lawsuit.

The trial comes after Uber escaped liability in the first state court bellwether trial in San Francisco Superior Court last September.

Uber moved to postpone the federal bellwether last December, arguing that the jury pool will be prejudiced by the Consumer Attorneys of California’s ad campaign called “Every 8 Minutes,” which claims Uber receives complaints about driver misconduct at that interval. The campaign is part of a broader political effort in California to oppose an Uber-sponsored ballot initiative that would hinder plaintiff-side personal injury attorneys.

The company sought an order blocking the ad campaign and a subpoena to help determine the relationship between the California attorney group and the lawyers in the Uber sexual assault cases.

Deepak Gupta of Gupta Wessler LLP, which represents the Consumer Attorneys of California, applauded the ruling. “The First Amendment does not bend to corporate pressure, and the court rightly refused to let Uber use the legal system to silence its critics,” he said.

Uber didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

The case is In re: Uber Technologies Inc. Passenger Sexual Assault Litigation, N.D. Cal., No. 3:23-md-03084, 1/5/26.