Uber says NC woman alleging driver assault has ‘zero proof.’ A jury will decide
A federal jury in Charlotte must decide whether an Uber driver assaulted a Raleigh woman seven years ago.
Brianna Mensing alleges in her lawsuit that one of Uber’s drivers asked her to sit in the front seat and grabbed her upper inner thigh before she got out and ran into her boyfriend’s home. Uber’s lawyers say the driver denies the allegations and that there is “zero proof” of the assault.
They have also cast doubt on Mensing’s memory, saying the late-night ride in March 2019 happened at the height of her struggle with drug addiction.
The trial began Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina with Mensing taking the stand and testifying about the March 26, 2019, ride.
She was 23 years old at the time, and it was her second time ever using Uber.
She used the app for the first time earlier that night to get to her friend’s place. After their visit, she said, the driver picked her up and drove her 20 minutes down the road, to her boyfriend’s home in Franklin, just north of Raleigh.
In the driveway, the driver grabbed her, Mensing said.
“I was horrified. I was almost paralyzed,” the now 30-year-old said during cross-examination.
Uber’s lawyer, Allison Brown, asked Mensing about what she remembers about the day after the alleged assault, which wasn’t much beyond checking security cameras and telling her boyfriend what happened.
Brown also asked about medical records that showed Mensing started smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol at age 11 and taking opioids at 16.
And at the time of the Uber incident, she was using crack cocaine, Brown said.
Mensing did not deny any of the drug use. But she said that she had just one beer before the 1:30 a.m. ride back to her boyfriend‘s home.
She might not remember everything about the 24 hours following the alleged assault, she said, but she remembers the assault clearly. She’ll never forget it.
Her family friend and mother testified that she told them about the incident. Her boyfriend at the time said he did not remember hearing about it. Mensing’s best friend, who Mensing thought knew about the alleged assault, never heard about it either, according to a video of the friend’s deposition played in court Thursday.
Uber‘s lawyer told the jury it’s their job to sort through whether Mensing’s account is reliable — whether she had a beer “or otherwise.” The attorney also asked Mensing why she didn’t report the incident to Uber or the police or try to bring charges against the driver.
“I’ve called the police many times on abusive things,” she said. “No one ever believes me.”
With eight cardboard file boxes sitting in the gallery behind her, Brown, with the jury not in the room, told U.S. Judge Charles R. Breyer that she wanted to show evidence that Mensing used different last names, emails and phone numbers to create Uber accounts in the last seven years.
That was evidence of fraud, she said.
Breyer, a bowtie-wearing, Northern Californian judge presiding over the Charlotte trial, blocked that argument immediately.
Other allegations against Uber drivers
Mensing’s case is part of a multidistrict litigation filed by passengers who say Uber drivers assaulted or harassed them. Breyer presides over that larger case. In Arizona earlier this year, a jury awarded $8.5 million in damages to a plaintiff who said her Uber driver raped her.
In Charlotte, the three-man, six-woman jury must decide whether the assault happened. If it did, North Carolina law makes Uber responsible.
Her case is being heard in the fourth-floor Jeffersonian courtroom, the only room in Charlotte that puts the jury below the judge, instead of on the side of the room, and positions the plaintiffs and defendants equidistant from the jury. It’s meant to emphasize impartiality of the jury.
With a statue of Lady Justice and her old golden scales sitting on their desk, Mensing’s lawyers told the jury in their opening statements that it is up to them to decide what and who they believe.
In North Carolina, the law is clear, Mensing’s attorney told the jury: “If Uber’s driver assaults a passenger, Uber is responsible. Period. That’s it. And Uber knows it.”
