Chickens Finally Come Home to Roost.

A jury just found the Gypsy Cab ride sharing company liable for a woman's rape by one of their drivers 

Their business model has always been to take the money and offset the costs on their drivers and passengers, and that includes safety.

The jury decided that it was worth $8-½ million.

Hopefully, this is the first of many such verdicts.

A federal jury in Phoenix on Thursday ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million to a passenger who said one of its drivers had raped her, setting the stage for thousands of similar cases around the country.

The ride-hailing giant has long maintained that it is not liable for the misconduct of drivers on its platform, whom it classifies as independent contractors, not employees. But the jury rejected that defense, providing a road map for more than 3,000 pending sexual assault and sexual misconduct lawsuits that accuse the company of systemic safety failures.

The lawsuit was brought by Jaylynn Dean, who said her Uber driver raped her in November 2023 during a ride to her hotel from her boyfriend’s apartment in Tempe, Ariz.

………

Uber fended off other claims in the case, including that it was negligent in its safety practices and that its app was defective.

The jury’s award fell far short of the $144 million that Ms. Dean’s lawyers had requested in damages. The jury did not dish out heavier penalties in part because it did not find that the company’s actions were “outrageous, oppressive or intolerable” or that they created substantial risk or significant harm.Uber fended off other claims in the case, including that it was negligent in its safety practices and that its app was defective.

………

Uber faces increasing scrutiny across the country as lawmakers, investors and others move to hold the company accountable for a pervasive pattern of sexual violence during rides.

Ms. Dean’s case is a bellwether in federal court proceedings that have consolidated thousands of the sexual assault lawsuits against Uber, allowing for certain procedural matters to be presented before the same judge while each case is tried individually. The verdict is not binding on the other cases, but it offered a “real-world test” of the arguments in front of a jury, said Nora Freeman Engstrom, a professor at Stanford Law School.

………

Over three weeks, jurors weighed the harrowing personal account of Ms. Dean as well as testimony from Uber executives and thousands of pages of internal company documents, 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.

"Impractical," huh?  More like unprofitable.

Lawyers for Ms. Dean introduced documents suggesting that Uber resisted introducing safety features such as in-car cameras because it believed these measures would slow corporate growth. 

There really needs to be a concerted effort to criminally prosecute executives who blithely approve policies which endanger the general public.

Once they start getting frog marched out of their offices in handcuffs, they and their fellow sociopaths will think twice about continuing their behavior.

Nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.