Lawyers representing Uber Technologies have told a judge they received death threats after The New York Times published an article in August critical of their legal strategy and claiming that they were attacking the credibility of the women accusing drivers of sexual assault.
“I’ve been defending companies in mass torts for 20 years, and I’ve never feared for the safety of my colleagues doing this job the way I have in the past week,” Kirkland & Ellis partner Allison Brown told U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer on Friday. “My colleagues are getting death threats. They can’t be at their homes. It is really serious.”
The New York Times article about Uber’s lawyers, headlined “Uber’s Strategy for Fighting Sexual Assault Suits: ‘What Were You Wearing?,” mentioned examples from depositions when Uber’s lawyers asked female plaintiffs about what they were wearing and how much they drank on the nights they say they were sexually assaulted.
Uber is preparing for a third trial in the sexual assault multidistrict litigation, involving about 4,000 sexual assault cases. Juries in the first two trials have already awarded $8.5 million to a woman in Arizona and $5,000 to a woman in North Carolina. Breyer is overseeing the sexual assault multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of California, according to a report by Law.com.
Scheduled to begin in October, the third trial involves a woman who alleges her Uber driver forced her to perform oral sex on him during a 2020 ride in Texas. The driver was convicted in 2022 of sexual assault, according to Law.com.
USA: Uber’s lawyers getting death threats over sexual assault cases
