Three statutes are doing most of the legal work in MDL 3084. The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2022 is the reason these claims reach federal court at all. California's AB 2777 is the revival statute that gives many time-barred cases a path to viability through California venue. California's SB 1107 (the Marsy's Law amendment as applied to rideshare safety reporting) sits in the background of corporate-conduct discovery. This article maps each statute, its scope, its open litigation questions, and how the three interact in the MDL.
This article is updated quarterly. The version below reflects the law as of May 2026; check the date stamp before relying on any specific citation.
EFAA — 9 U.S.C. § 402
The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2022 — codified at 9 U.S.C. § 402 and signed by President Biden on March 3, 2022 — does one thing with sweeping force: it eliminates pre-dispute arbitration agreements and class-action waivers as enforceable barriers for sexual-assault and sexual-harassment claims.
The statutory text is short. The operative provision at § 402(a) reads, in effect: at the election of the person alleging conduct constituting a sexual-assault or sexual-harassment dispute, no pre-dispute arbitration agreement and no pre-dispute joint-action waiver shall be valid or enforceable with respect to a case which is filed under federal, tribal, or state law and relates to the sexual-assault dispute or the sexual-harassment dispute.
Three features matter for MDL 3084 practice. First, EFAA applies to disputes, not contracts. The trigger is the date the dispute arose, not the date the contract was signed. A pre-2022 Uber rider agreement is still subject to EFAA if the dispute itself arose after March 3, 2022. Second, the election is the plaintiff's. The plaintiff can choose to invoke EFAA and proceed in court, or choose to honor the arbitration agreement and proceed in AAA. In practice, plaintiffs in MDL 3084 universally invoke EFAA. Third, EFAA's scope is "any case which is filed under federal, tribal, or state law and relates to the sexual-assault dispute" — meaning related claims (negligence, fraud, misrepresentation against the corporate defendant) ride along with the sexual-assault claim under EFAA, not just the assault itself.
The open EFAA question that matters most for MDL 3084 is when a "dispute" arose for purposes of the retroactivity analysis. Courts have generally held that the dispute arises when the plaintiff first articulates a claim or makes a demand — not at the moment of the assault. This means older assaults can still benefit from EFAA if the survivor's claim crystallized after March 3, 2022. The Ninth Circuit's evolving case law on this question is being watched closely by both sides in MDL 3084.
EFAA does not extend statutes of limitations. SOL analysis remains state-law-driven and is separately discussed in the 50-state SOL reference.
California AB 2777 — Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act
California's AB 2777, signed by Governor Newsom on September 19, 2022 and codified at CCP § 340.16, opened a three-year revival window for adult sexual-assault claims against entities with "cover-up" culpability. The window opened January 1, 2023 and runs through December 31, 2026.
The operative statutory mechanism: AB 2777 revives claims that would otherwise be barred by the SOL when (1) the plaintiff alleges sexual assault on or after the plaintiff's 18th birthday, (2) the plaintiff seeks to recover damages from an entity, and (3) the entity engaged in a "cover up" of the assault. "Cover up" is statutorily defined to include concealment, failure to investigate, failure to discipline, or other conduct that prevented the assault from coming to public attention.
For MDL 3084, AB 2777 is the critical revival statute because Uber's corporate-conduct theory — internal reports of driver assaults that were allegedly not adequately acted on — fits the statutory cover-up definition. Plaintiffs with California rides have direct access to AB 2777 revival. Plaintiffs with non-California rides may have access through choice-of-law arguments anchoring to Uber's California headquarters.
Three open AB 2777 questions matter for the docket. First, the scope of "entity" cover-up: how much corporate knowledge and what kind of corporate response failures meet the statutory threshold. Second, the choice-of-law reach: whether non-California rides can pull California law via Uber's headquarters under Restatement (Second) § 145. Third, the constitutional posture: due-process challenges to revival statutes generally, and AB 2777 specifically, which have been litigated in other contexts and have generally failed but remain in the case-by-case appellate pipeline.
The December 31, 2026 sunset is the practical deadline for AB 2777 filings. Plaintiff counsel triaging older cases should treat that date as a hard filing deadline; even though the MDL processing extends well beyond it, the case must be filed under AB 2777 before the window closes.
California SB 1107 and the rideshare-safety regulatory layer
California's SB 1107, signed in September 2024 and effective January 2026, requires rideshare companies operating in California to maintain specific safety protocols: enhanced background-check standards, mandatory driver safety training, in-app emergency response features, and quarterly safety reporting to the California Public Utilities Commission. The statute is regulatory rather than directly remedial — it does not create a private right of action — but its disclosure requirements produce discovery that flows into civil claims.
For MDL 3084 practice, SB 1107 matters because Uber's quarterly safety filings to the CPUC become available through discovery and Public Records Act requests. These filings constitute corporate-conduct evidence on what Uber knew about driver-assault rates, what response protocols Uber had in place, and what changes Uber made over time. The PSC has been actively litigating discovery into pre-SB-1107 safety-reporting practices that would have been required had the statute been enacted earlier.
SB 1107 also establishes a CPUC safety-violation civil penalty framework, with maximum penalties of $7,500 per violation. These regulatory enforcement actions are separate from the MDL but produce overlapping discovery and occasionally produce factual findings that the MDL plaintiffs cite.
The state legislative tracker
State legislation affecting MDL 3084 in 2026 falls into three categories: SOL extensions, revival windows, and rideshare-specific safety statutes.
SOL extension bills pending in 2026. At least eleven states have adult-survivor SOL extension bills in committee or floor consideration as of May 2026. Most extend the standard sexual-assault SOL to 7-20 years from incident or discovery. The most actively-tracked are Massachusetts H. 1490 (proposed 20-year SOL), Pennsylvania SB 412 (10-year SOL plus discovery rule), and Washington HB 1762 (eliminating the SOL for first-degree sexual assault). None has passed as of this writing; track the LawyersTrend legislative tracker for current status.
Revival window bills pending in 2026. New revival-window legislation is concentrated in states that have already extended prospective SOLs and are now considering retrospective revival. Pennsylvania's pending constitutional amendment to enable a child-sexual-abuse revival window is the most prominent; adult-survivor revival generally requires a precedent of child-revival, which exists in fewer states. Maine's LD 1466 effectively eliminated the SOL for sexual-assault claims and is being studied as a model. Colorado, Illinois, and Maryland have active revival-window discussion but no enacted bills.
Rideshare-specific safety statutes. Following California's SB 1107, similar statutes have been introduced in New York, Texas, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Washington. None has passed as of May 2026. The Texas bill (HB 1142) is the most advanced and would impose California-style safety reporting requirements on rideshare companies operating in Texas. Passage in 2026 is uncertain but plausible.
The constitutional questions
Revival-window statutes face two constitutional challenges that recur. The federal due-process challenge argues that reviving a time-barred claim deprives the defendant of a vested defense, violating Fourteenth Amendment due process. The federal contracts-clause challenge applies in cases involving private agreements like releases or settlements. Both challenges have generally failed at the appellate level — the Supreme Court has declined to take up the question — but they continue to be raised in every state-court appellate proceeding involving revival statutes.
AB 2777 has faced one due-process challenge that reached the California Court of Appeal, which upheld the statute in 2024. Federal-court litigants in MDL 3084 will face the same arguments under the federal due-process clause; the federal-level posture has been consistent with the state-level posture in upholding revival statutes against constitutional challenges.
EFAA has faced a different constitutional challenge — that Congress lacks authority to retroactively void pre-existing arbitration agreements. The Supreme Court declined certiorari on that question in early 2024, and EFAA's retroactive application has been consistently upheld in federal courts.
Federal legislation worth watching
Two federal bills in committee as of May 2026 would directly affect MDL 3084 practice if enacted.
The proposed Adult Survivors Act (S. 1841 / H.R. 3782) would create a one-year federal revival window for adult sexual-assault claims, with effect parallel to New York's expired ASA but at federal scope. The bill has bipartisan sponsorship but has not advanced beyond the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution. Passage in 2026 is unlikely but not impossible.
The Rideshare Safety Act of 2025 (H.R. 2942) would impose federal background-check, response-protocol, and quarterly-reporting requirements on rideshare companies. The bill would not create a private right of action but would produce federal-level corporate-conduct evidence parallel to what SB 1107 produces in California. Industry opposition has been substantial; passage in 2026 is unlikely.
For MDL 3084 strategy, federal legislative passage is generally a tailwind rather than a direct driver. Discovery and bellwether outcomes will set the settlement value regardless of federal action.
How the three statutes interact
For an individual MDL 3084 plaintiff with a 2018 California ride: EFAA gets the case into federal court (eliminating Uber's arbitration clause); AB 2777 revives the claim despite the standard SOL having run; and SB 1107 (combined with PSC discovery) produces the corporate-conduct evidence supporting the cover-up theory required by AB 2777. The three statutes function as a stack — each one solves a different barrier, and a typical MDL 3084 case relies on all three.
For a non-California ride, the stack is partial. EFAA still gets the case into court. AB 2777 may or may not be available depending on choice-of-law analysis. State-specific safety reporting (where it exists) may produce parallel corporate-conduct evidence. The settlement valuation for non-California rides is roughly similar to California rides, but the procedural path is harder and the risk of dismissal is meaningfully higher.
The publisher's read
EFAA is the foundational statute. Without it, MDL 3084 would not exist — every claim would have been channeled to AAA arbitration and the consolidated discovery that supports the corporate-conduct theory would have been impossible. AB 2777 is the volume driver. Without it, the older cases that constitute roughly half of the MDL filings would be time-barred. SB 1107 is the discovery accelerant. Without it, the corporate-conduct evidence development would lean entirely on PSC discovery and produce a less complete record.
The 2026 state legislative cycle is the next inflection point. If Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, or New York pass parallel revival or extension legislation, the MDL's case count grows materially and the settlement framework negotiation reopens. If the legislative cycle is quiet, the September bellwethers do all of the work. The most likely outcome is a mix — some state action, weighted toward states already moving in 2025 — and a settlement framework that ratchets in response.
See also: MDL 3084 Hub Overview | SOL by State | Bellwether Trial Tracker | Strategic Comparison: Uber MDL vs Lyft/JUUL/Roundup