Uber appeals Charlotte jury’s verdict deciding it owed money to assaulted rider
Uber is asking higher courts to review a Charlotte jury’s verdict that the company must pay a North Carolina woman $5,000 after her driver assaulted her in 2019.
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During a trial in the U.S. District Court for the Western District for North Carolina last month, Brianna Mensing testified that during her second ever ride with Uber, her driver asked her to sit in the passenger seat and grabbed her upper inner thigh.
Uber argued she had “zero proof” of the assault and hinged its defense on Mensing’s reliability. The time of the assault, March 2019, was near the peak of her struggle with drug addiction, Uber’s attorneys said.
But the jury believed her and found that, because Uber is liable for the assault, they must pay her $5,000. U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer told jury members that North Carolina law makes Uber responsible for any assault that happens during rides.
Uber on May 19 appealed the jury’s decision to the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and told The Charlotte Observer in a statement that “the verdict was the product of multiple legal errors.”
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A safety spokesperson for the company said the judge’s conclusion that Uber is liable for any rider assaults in North Carolina “is inconsistent with longstanding North Carolina law” and that the verdict “was the product of multiple evidentiary errors that gave the jury a one-sided view of the facts.”
William Smith, an attorney for Mensing, previously told the Observer that “Uber comes into court and tries to trash victims, but nine people sitting on the jury believed her.” Mensing’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment on Uber’s appeal.
Mensing’s case is part of a multidistrict litigation filed by passengers who say Uber drivers assaulted or harassed them. Breyer, a Northern California judge, presides over that larger case. In Arizona earlier this year, a jury awarded $8.5 million in damages to a plaintiff who said her Uber driver raped her.
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Uber has said it intends to appeal that case, too.
