Uber should pay more than $144 million in compensatory and punitive damages for choosing "profit over safety," leading to the rape of a 19-year-old woman by a rideshare driver, her lawyer told an Arizona federal jury at the close of a landmark bellwether trial on Tuesday.

Uber should pay $24 million in compensatory damages and another $120.2 million in punitive damages to a woman alleging she was raped by a rideshare driver, the plaintiff's lawyer says. (Aaron M. Sprecher via AP) The closing arguments capped a three-week trial in the first federal lawsuit to go before a jury over Uber's liability for assaults committed by its drivers. The plaintiff in the test case says she relied on Uber's representations regarding its security and safety measures when she booked a ride through the app after an evening of drinking — and then was raped by her Uber driver.

A lawyer for plaintiff Jaylynn Dean urged the nine-member jury during closing arguments to award the woman $24 million in compensatory damages for her emotional suffering and another $120.2 million to "punish" Uber.

Deobrah Chang of Chang Klein LLP told jurors that Uber concealed critical safety information from women about how the risks of sexual assault are higher for women who are alone, who are intoxicated and who are traveling late at night. Meanwhile, the company invested billions of dollars into advertising touting Uber as their safest option, "to lull these vulnerable women into a false sense of security," Chang said.

Worse, Uber has attacked the credibility of sexual assault victims that have come forward, she said.

"They knew it was foreseeable and preventable, but they always chose profit over protection, prevention and safety," the lawyer told jurors.

A significant damages award will get the attention of Uber and the rideshare industry at large, Chang said.

"That is something that will dictate their behavior in the future, and the rideshare industry's," the lawyer said. "That is how important punitive damages are."

The $120.2 million is how much revenue Uber reportedly makes in a day, the lawyer said.

There are three claims in Dean's case: negligence, product defect and "apparent agency," a legal doctrine in which a principle is held liable for an agent's actions by a third party who believed an agency relationship existed.

Uber has argued that its app only connects riders with "independent contractors" who provide the rides.

During Uber's closing argument on Tuesday, the company's lawyer told the jury of six women and three men that Uber should win on all three claims.

"Uber did act with reasonable care," said Kim Bueno of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. "What happened in that car was not foreseeable. There is not a defective design of this app."

Bueno also underscored that the jury must find that Uber caused the alleged assault.

"You can't just determine that Uber is negligent, you have to determine that that negligence caused Miss Dean's injury," Uber's lawyer said.

Dean filed her suit in December 2023, weeks after the alleged sexual assault in Tempe, Arizona.

According to her complaint, she had been out drinking — celebrating her impending graduation from flight attendant training — and had ordered a ride from Uber to get back to her hotel. After getting into the back seat of the vehicle, Dean said she laid down and closed her eyes. The driver stopped the vehicle mid-ride, got into the back seat and raped her, she said. She immediately reported the incident to Uber and the police, according to the complaint.

Bueno reminded jurors on Tuesday that the driver claims the sex was consensual, although that was also against Uber's rules for drivers.

"Was it foreseeable to Uber that this driver … would violate the 'no sex' rule?" Bueno asked. "The answer to that is no."

Uber did regular background checks on the driver, there's no evidence that he had a criminal background and he had positive reviews, mostly five-star ratings. During her closing argument, Bueno also went over safety measures she said Uber has implemented over the years to reduce sexual assaults.

"The evidence is that Uber has spent tremendous amount of resources and money on things like background checks, safety education, a hotline fund, safety employees," Bueno said. "More than $1.3 billion on these efforts."

Uber has also put out data about safety-related incidents that occur during rides, including sexual assaults, she said.

"There was a suggestion that we were not being transparent enough in these reports," Bueno said. "Uber was the first company to say, 'We want to be transparent. We want to turn on the lights to our problem on our platform.'"

Another lawyer for Dean, Sarah London of Girard Sharp LLP, gave the final rebuttal argument and told jurors that Bueno wasn't forthright when she said the assault wasn't foreseeable.

Evidence was presented at trial that the driver was "a rule-breaker" who had violated Uber policies like a prohibition on accepting cash from riders, had made improper remarks to some passengers and had been checked for excessive speeding, London said.

In addition, Uber's internal artificial intelligence-powered program for dispatchers — the Safety Risk Assessed Dispatch, or S-RAD — showed that Dean's driver had a higher than average score that made him a poor match for an intoxicated solo female passenger, London said.

"They sent him anyway, and they didn't warn her," the lawyer said.

San Francisco-based U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer, who is overseeing the multidistrict litigation, has been presiding over the trial in Phoenix, which began Jan. 13. In pretrial proceedings last month, the judge ruled that Uber could not introduce evidence that the driver wasn't criminally charged.

The plaintiffs also claim that Uber has a duty to warn passengers of known dangers.

"If you determine that the danger to the plaintiff was unforeseeable to Uber or that Uber had taken reasonable precautions to avoid the danger, then Uber's conduct was not negligent," Judge Breyer told jurors Tuesday morning before closing arguments.

The suit's second claim asserts that the Uber app is a "defective and unreasonably dangerous" product. The claimed design defects are a lack of an app-based ride video recording feature at the time of the incident and an option that would have allowed Dean to be matched with a female driver.

In September, a state court jury in San Francisco considered similar allegations in the first such state court bellwether trial. That jury held that Uber was negligent with respect to safety measures it took to protect a passenger who says she was sexually assaulted by her driver. But the jury concluded that Uber wasn't liable for damages because its negligence wasn't a substantial factor in causing her harm.

On Monday, Uber's chief product officer, the final live defense witness, rejected claims that Uber dragged its feet on implementing some safety measures, saying his team worked diligently to get the Women Preference and audio recording features up and running. But he told jurors "there's a lot more that we have to do."

The jury began their deliberations Tuesday afternoon and will continue on Wednesday.

Outside the jury's presence, Judge Breyer announced to the parties that the next bellwether in the MDL will begin on April 12 in North Carolina.

The suit names Uber Technologies Inc. and its subsidiaries Raiser LLC and Rasier-Ca LLC as defendants.

Dean and the plaintiffs in the MDL are represented by co-lead counsel Sarah R. London of Girard Sharp LLP, Rachel B. Abrams of Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane Conway & Wise LLP, Roopal P. Luhana of Chaffin Luhana LLP, Alexandra M. Walsh of Anapol Weiss and Deobrah Chang of Chang Klein LLP.

Uber Technologies Inc., Rasier LLC and Rasier-Ca LLC are represented by Laura Vartain Horn, Kim Bueno, Allison M. Brown, Tara L. Blake and Jessica Davidson of Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Sabrina H. Strong and Jonathan Schneller of O'Melveny & Myers LLP.

The case is Jaylyn Dean v. Uber Technologies Inc. et al., case number 2:25-cv-04276, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. The MDL is In re: Uber Technologies Inc., Passenger Sexual Assault Litigation, case number 3:23-md-03084, in the U.S. District Court for the California Northern District.