Uber MDL Intake Checklist — What Evidence Qualifies a Case (May 2026)

Intake is where MDL 3084 cases either qualify or wash out. The fact pattern that supports a viable claim — passenger rideshare, sexual assault, ride documented in Uber's systems — is shared across thousands of survivors, but the evidence that distinguishes a high-value case from one the MDL leadership won't prioritize is uneven across files. This article is an intake-evidence reference for two audiences: the plaintiff lawyer triaging new survivors, and the survivor evaluating whether their case fits the docket.

The framework here assumes the SOL screen has already cleared. For time-bar analysis, see the 50-state SOL reference. What follows is the substantive-evidence layer that sits below the SOL filter.

What MDL 3084 actually requires

The MDL covers passenger-on-driver sexual-assault claims arising from rides booked through the Uber app. The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation's October 2023 consolidation order describes the common factual nucleus as: (1) a ride booked via the Uber platform, (2) an assault committed by the driver during or immediately incident to that ride, and (3) a theory of liability against Uber for inadequate background-check, supervision, or response protocols. Cases outside this nucleus — driver-on-driver, third-party assault during a ride, Uber Eats incidents — are not in the MDL even where they involve Uber's app.

Within the nucleus, the MDL accepts a wide spectrum of severity, from non-consensual touching to violent sexual assault. The MDL does not require criminal prosecution, criminal conviction, or police report at the time of the incident. It does require that the assault be alleged with sufficient specificity to permit the corporate-conduct theory to attach — meaning the plaintiff can identify the ride, the driver (or a driver-account), and the conduct.

The five categories of intake evidence

Evidence in an Uber MDL case falls into five categories. A strong case has substantive evidence in at least three; a triable case usually has all five.

1. The ride record. Uber's app data is the foundational evidence in nearly every MDL case. This includes the booking record, pickup and drop-off coordinates, ride duration, route, driver assignment, and payment record. Uber's data retention covers rides going back the full life of the account. Plaintiff counsel typically obtains this via litigation hold and discovery, not via survivor self-help — Uber's user-facing app history is heavily redacted compared to backend records. The ride record establishes the predicate that the encounter happened within the Uber platform.

2. Contemporaneous reports. Anything the survivor told someone — anyone — close in time to the assault has evidentiary weight. This includes statements to friends, family, roommates, partners, therapists, medical providers, police, sexual-assault hotlines, and Uber's in-app reporting. Even text messages or social-media posts referring to "something bad" or "scary" on a ride can corroborate the timeline. The point is not whether the survivor formally reported — many do not — but whether the assault left a trace in someone else's memory or records.

3. Driver identification. The driver's name, license plate, vehicle make/model, or photo. Most rides have driver identification in the ride record, but survivor recall of the driver's appearance, mannerisms, or statements can corroborate. Cases where the driver cannot be identified at all — phantom-account rides, hijacked driver accounts, or stolen-identity drivers — are harder to prosecute but not disqualifying. Uber's records typically identify the driver-account, which becomes the discovery target.

4. Damages documentation. Medical records (ER, OB/GYN, urgent care, primary care), psychiatric records, therapy notes, prescription history for trauma-related medications, time missed from work, evidence of relationship strain or family disruption. Damages documentation often does not arise immediately — survivors may not seek therapy until years later. Late-arising damages evidence is still admissible and often more probative than contemporaneous records (which may have been documented under-cautiously).

5. Corporate-conduct evidence. This is the leverage. The MDL's core theory is that Uber knew or should have known about driver assault risk and failed to act adequately on background checks, response protocols, or safety features. Plaintiff counsel develops this through discovery, but the survivor's individual case may add corporate-conduct evidence — for example, if the survivor reported the assault to Uber and Uber's response was inadequate, that becomes evidence both of the assault and of Uber's response protocol failures. The corporate-conduct theory is litigated MDL-wide; the individual survivor's contribution is fact-specific.

The intake interview

A disciplined intake interview covers the following in approximately this order:

Date, time, and location of the ride. Where it began, where it ended, how long it took. Whether the survivor still has the booking confirmation or app history.
Driver identification. Name (if remembered), vehicle description, anything distinctive about the driver's appearance or behavior.
The assault itself. What happened, in the survivor's own words. Do not lead. Document carefully. Survivors often describe assault in fragmentary terms in early intake — this is normal and not a credibility signal.
Immediate aftermath. Where did the ride end? How did the survivor get to safety? Was anyone called or texted?
Reporting. Was a report made — to Uber, police, hospital, a hotline, anyone? When and to whom?
Medical attention. Did the survivor seek any medical evaluation, then or later? Mental health support?
Impact on life. Time off work, relationship effects, ongoing symptoms, behavioral changes.
Prior intake elsewhere. Has the survivor talked to another firm? Filed any prior claim? Spoken to Uber's claims line?

The interview should be conducted in a setting that gives the survivor agency over pacing and breaks. Many firms in the MDL plaintiff pool have trauma-informed intake protocols developed for ASA practice; those protocols translate directly.

Document preservation

From the survivor's side, the intake-driven preservation list is:

Uber app history (screenshots of the ride, the booking confirmation email, any payment record)
Text messages, voicemails, or social-media posts referring to the ride or assault
Medical records — ER, urgent care, primary care, gynecology, psychiatry, therapy
Prescription history (pharmacy printout)
Employment records showing time off, performance impact, or workplace accommodations
Therapy and counseling records, including dated session notes if available
Calendar or journal entries from the relevant period
Any correspondence with Uber's safety team, customer service, or claims line

The survivor should sign written releases for each category at intake. The firm should not wait — releases that are unsigned at intake become hard to obtain six months later, and stale records become harder to retrieve from underlying providers.

Cases that look weak but are not

Several fact patterns scare off inexperienced intake but actually fit MDL 3084 well.

No police report. Most MDL cases do not have a contemporaneous police report. Survivors choose not to report for many documented reasons. The absence of a police report is not disqualifying and is not strongly probative on credibility.

Years of delay. Cases where the survivor did not connect their symptoms to compensable harm until years later are increasingly the default in adult-survivor practice. The discovery rule covers this. Documented therapy onset and dated symptom history are the relevant evidence.

Driver acquitted or never charged. Civil liability is independent of criminal disposition. An acquittal is not estoppel; absence of criminal charge is not exculpatory. Many MDL cases involve drivers who were never criminally charged at all.

Survivor cannot fully describe the assault. Trauma-related memory fragmentation is well-documented in the literature and does not preclude a case. The survivor's contemporaneous behavior and statements can corroborate a partial narrative.

Driver was previously a friend or acquaintance. Some rides are between people who knew each other. The MDL still reaches these cases provided the ride was booked through the Uber app and the assault occurred during or immediately incident to the ride.

Cases that look strong but are not

A few fact patterns produce intake interest but should be declined or referred out.

Ride not booked through Uber. If the survivor flagged the ride from the street, paid in cash, or used a non-app channel, the MDL does not reach the case even if the driver was a registered Uber driver at other times.

Non-driver assailant. Assault by another passenger, by someone met at the destination, or by a third party is not within MDL 3084's scope even if the rideshare facilitated proximity.

Driver-on-driver or workplace claims. Driver-side claims against Uber (independent contractor misclassification, worker harassment) are separate litigation and should be referred to firms handling Uber's wage-and-hour or workplace claims, not into MDL 3084.

Solely property or harassment claims. The MDL is for sexual assault — non-touching verbal harassment, property damage, or other tortious conduct does not fit the consolidation order.

Settlement already accepted. If the survivor accepted a confidential settlement from Uber's claims process and signed a release, the case is generally barred — though some releases are vulnerable to challenge if they predate EFAA or were procured without full disclosure of available remedies.

What to do with the borderline case

Borderline cases — where one or two of the five evidence categories are thin — are common and worth working. The typical pattern is a case with a clear ride record and clear medical history but no contemporaneous reporting. These cases are often viable; they require careful damages development and a credible plaintiff who can tell the story at deposition.

Plaintiff firms in the MDL pool generally screen borderline cases against three criteria: whether the survivor will testify well, whether the ride is documented in Uber's records, and whether damages are documented enough to support a claim that meaningfully contributes to the MDL bellwether and settlement leadership matrix. A case that meets these three criteria is worth taking even if police reports and immediate-aftermath corroboration are missing.

The handoff to MDL leadership

Cases taken at intake do not stay solo. The MDL has a leadership structure that aggregates cases for common discovery, bellwether selection, and settlement negotiation. Individual plaintiff firms file cases either directly into MDL 3084 (which sits in the Northern District of California) or in a state-court venue with a tag-along petition to transfer. Either way, common-benefit work is coordinated through the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, and individual cases benefit from the MDL's aggregate discovery on corporate-conduct evidence.

For practice: build the intake file as if the case will ultimately be tried, not as if it will be coordinated through aggregate settlement. Aggregate settlement is the likely outcome, but the cases that go to bellwether trial are the ones that drove that settlement value — and the cases that look most credible at intake are the ones most likely to be selected for bellwether.

The publisher's read

Intake discipline is what separates MDL 3084 cases that deliver value from cases that consume firm resources without contributing to the docket. The intake-evidence checklist above is conservative — it errs on the side of taking borderline cases, because the discovery rule, revival windows, and aggregate-settlement dynamics work in plaintiffs' favor more than firms outside this area often realize. The mistake more common than over-screening is under-documenting at intake — failing to lock in releases, failing to preserve early-stage statements, and failing to build the damages timeline before stale records become unrecoverable.

For survivors evaluating whether to bring a case: the threshold is lower than most public messaging suggests, and the practice infrastructure (trauma-informed intake, contingency fee, MDL coordination) exists to handle complex evidence pictures. The decision to bring a case is yours; the evidence-quality question is rarely the one that should drive it.