This article was co-authored by Benjamin Gillig, Senior Associate and Zeni Peirolo, Paralegal.

In a major ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected Uber's effort to stop hundreds of sexual assault lawsuits against the rideshare company from being grouped together in a federal multi-district litigation (MDL) based in San Francisco. The lawsuits, filed by women who were sexually assaulted or harassed by Uber drivers, claim that the company failed to implement adequate safety measures and misled riders about how safe the platform actually is. (Wagstaff Law Firm represents clients against Uber and Lyft in both state and federal litigations.) 

            Uber objected to the centralization of these lawsuits in an MDL and asserted a new theory to defeat consolidation: Uber's user agreement includes a clause that bans customers from joining class actions or consolidated actions. A group of judges, called the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, or JPML, rejected that argument, finding that pretrial consolidation would help to efficiently move the cases toward resolution. Uber appealed to the Ninth Circuit and repeated its argument that the Uber user agreement meant the judges couldn't create an MDL.

            The Ninth Circuit disagreed. In a published opinion, the court held that Uber's user agreement couldn't take away the JPML's power to consolidate cases into an MDL. So long as the cases present common questions (and otherwise meet statutory requirements), the JPML is authorized by Congress to create an MDL and transfer cases to it. The court emphasized that MDLs are a case management tool for courts to use, not a right that a plaintiff or defendant can waive or alter via contract.

            The Uber cases clearly presented common questions of fact, the court concluded. By centralizing these cases, the court said, the JPML had avoided repetitive discovery and inconsistent rulings, thereby conserving judicial resources. Thus, the Ninth Circuit found that the JPML's decision to create an MDL should not be disturbed. The lawsuits are now proceeding together before Judge Charles Breyer in the Northern District of California. The first bellwether cases are scheduled for trial in late 2025.

            The Ninth Circuit's opinion in this case will provide a roadmap for future disputes over MDL creation. Companies, especially those with customer-facing brands and services, are increasingly looking for ways to veto creation of MDLs when it does not serve their litigation strategy. (Of course, defendants are often the ones to ask the JPML to create MDLs.) But the Uber appeal seems to have taken one such avenue—a clause in the user agreement purporting to disallow consolidation—off the table in the Ninth Circuit, at least for now. But that does not necessarily mean that a future court will reach the same conclusion as the court did here. There is also the possibility that another Ninth Circuit panel reviewing a differently situated case will come to a different conclusion. Only time will tell.

The case is Uber Techs., Inc., et al. v. United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litig., 131 F.4th 661 (9th Cir 2025).