Uber Found Liable in Rape by Driver, Setting Stage for Cases

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/business/uber-safety-rape-verdict.html

by buellerbueller • 6 months ago

59 54 6 months ago

Pwntastic• 6 months ago

Uber was found liable of "apparent agency" if you are interested: https://legal-resources.uslegalforms.com/a/apparent-agency

richwater• 6 months ago

No idea how you can hold a company liable for the crimes committed by employees, regardless of how awful those crimes might be. I assume this will get overturned.

cute_boi• 6 months ago

I agree the company shouldn’t be held liable. But Uber doesn’t vet drivers properly because they want driver numbers to be high. I see too many Uber vehicles where the driver doesn’t match the name/photo.

Edman2743• 6 months ago

What incentive would there be for a gig company like Uber to not deliberately hire criminals if Uber isn't liable, but other companies could be? Reputational damage isn't enough to hurt the bottom line and to change behavior - if it were, they would've already done more, but they didn't because they were operating under the assumption that they were legally insulated.

bonsai_spool5• 6 months ago

No idea how you can hold a company liable for the crimes committed by employees

This is quite standard actually, and there's a long common law tradition around this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respondeat_superior).

The question here was whether Uber could claim the drivers were not, in fact, employees.

(edit: A commenter correctly explains that no employee relationship is necessarily required; I should have stated that this was one part of Uber's defense, in addition to the driver having agreed not to assault riders and having undergone a safety screening)

carlosjobim5• 6 months ago

Do you think Uber instructed their drivers to rape people?

According to the article you linked to, a similar case was already tried in 1838, when a boy fell off a wagon, and the master was not guilty of the behaviour of the wagon driver.

klodolph• 6 months ago

Respondeat superior and vicarious liability don’t specifically require an employer-employee relationship.

buellerbueller7• 6 months ago

Is an owner of a dog that mauls someone responsible for damages to the victim?

GaryBluto• 6 months ago

Do companies own their workers?

kingstnap• 6 months ago

Extremely strange analogy. Uber drivers aren't per dogs. They are adult humans you can make them liable for shit they do.

hackingonempty• 6 months ago

It probably depends on the state but in California, yes. Dog owners there are strictly liable for any injuries caused by their dogs unless the victim was trespassing.

JohnTHaller• 6 months ago

If you go into Walmart and one of its employees assaults you, Walmart can be held liable.

pacificmint• 6 months ago

I mean, it’s not quite that simple, is it? Did they do everything they could to make drivers and passengers safe? Or did they put profits over people’s safety?

From the article:

internal company documents […] showing that Uber had flagged her ride as a higher risk for a serious safety incident moments before she was picked up. Uber never warned her […]

Uber actually had a whole project that produced systems that determine the risk of incidents happening. Could they make rides safer but chose not to? That’s at the core of these lawsuits.

satellite22• 6 months ago

Interesting. When it's the state I think the overwhelming opinion is that predictive policing is dangerous but when it's a private company we actually want it to enforce it?

kylehotchkiss• 6 months ago

Oof, this sounds like a case where executives/management who knew about this tool and didn't act upon it should be charged with accessory-to-crime. There has got to be a moral imperative to act upon tools like this.

nilslindemann• 6 months ago

If Uber knew but did not warn her, then it's certainly correct that they were convicted.

croes• 6 months ago

The same companies claim ownership for their employees‘ inventions. So …

b00ty4breakfast• 6 months ago

The article lists a few reasons why. There were some ("some" meaning "thousands of pages", per the article) documents from the company

....including some showing that Uber had flagged her ride as a higher risk for a serious safety incident moments before she was picked up. Uber never warned her, with an executive testifying that it would have been “impractical” to do so.

as well as some

...suggesting that Uber resisted introducing safety features such as in-car cameras because it believed these measures would slow corporate growth.

I would probably have not been included on the jury because I think uber is run by some of the biggest scumbags in the corporate world but if the article is to be believed it's not an unreasonable verdict unless you think no company should be liable for anything that results from their choices and actions.

ktallett• 6 months ago

Drivers are only independent contractors due to poor employment policy from Uber. They work for Uber, therefore Uber do have a duty of care to the users of their service. Now some may say that they only provide the platform similar to Silkroad, however the key difference is that the drivers are representing Uber, in Silkroad's case the sellers were not representing silkroad.

If Uber wish to be seperate from those drivers, they need to provide the customer the chance to choose the driver, and have an appropriate review system.

Ekaros• 6 months ago

Uber isn't a marketplace like say Ebay. As such I expect them to be responsible for the actions of "contractors" they appointed to do the job. As the buyer couldn't freely choose the contractor.

buellerbueller7• 6 months ago

I think this is exactly the point that GP commenter is making.

jqpabc123• 6 months ago

If Uber can be held liable for driver's actions then Tesla can be held liable for "Full Self Driving" cars that aren't.

buellerbueller7• 6 months ago

Let's hope.

itsdesmond4• 6 months ago

Let’s uh not change the subject.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 6 months ago

Judgment for 8.5 million

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.41...

Is this the first of many to come

Uber Found Liable in Rape by Driver, Setting Stage for Cases

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