Uber accused of ignoring court order on sex assault litigation discovery

Uber Technologies Inc. is accused of not fully complying with a court-ordered litigation hold in discovery for a massive passenger sexual assault multidistrict litigation.

Plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel, Sarah R. London of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP, Rachel B. Abrams of Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise LLP and Roopal P. Luhana of Chaffin Luhana LLP, claimed Uber has provided only limited, contradictory and confusing information regarding what litigation holds it has implemented to date.

Uber, represented by Randall S. Luskey and Robert Atkins of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP, had a deadline to file a response to the plaintiffs’ motion by Friday but did not submit anything by press time.

Oral arguments on this matter are scheduled for Jan. 4 in San Francisco before U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisa J. Cisneros. In re: Uber Technologies Inc., Passenger Sexual Assault Litigation, 23-md-03084, (N.D. Cal. filed Oct. 4, 2023).

“Uber has not provided plaintiffs with sufficient assurance that it is meeting its obligations,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys said, “Uber has also not provided any details about the non-custodial sources it is preserving or not preserving. … Uber has historically taken a cramped view of what evidence is potentially relevant in a sexual assault case.”

The co-lead attorneys claimed that Uber has only represented to the court that it has issued holds to multiple custodians, but “none of these vague representations is sufficient to allow plaintiffs or the court to determine whether Uber is complying with its obligations to preserve potentially relevant documents and information. Uber should be compelled to immediately provide the basic details of its litigation holds.”

They said that they asked Uber’s attorneys two times to provide limited information about what Uber was holding, information about the custodians and the claims the preserved documents related to but were refused both times. This left plaintiffs’ counsel in the dark as to what relevant information Uber is adequately preserving and what may be lost or at risk of destruction, the attorneys continued.

Uber is accused in several lawsuits of ignoring how widespread the issue of sexual assault against passengers was, concealed the problem and continued to maintain lax hiring and security screening. Riders’ attorneys accused Uber of prioritizing its business model, which relies on having a large pool of available drivers to provide rides as soon as possible, over rider safety.

After being consolidated in the Northern District Court of California in October, the multidistrict litigation involves more than 10,000 plaintiffs and is one of the largest federal sex assault cases ever. The results of this litigation — which demands policy changes at the company — could massively impact the ride-sharing industry, attorneys for the plaintiffs asserted.