Jury Awards $37M after Uber Rideshare Rollover Accident

DALLAS— A Dallas jury awarded Sarah Milburn (27) $37,615,818 in damages sustained in a 2015 Uber car accident. On November 15, 2015, then 23 year-old student Sarah Millburn had ordered an Uber along with five friends. They entered into a Honda minivan operated by Arian Yusufzai. Milburn sat in the middle seat of the 3rd row of the vehicle. She grabbed the seat belt strap that hung from the ceiling and secured it across her chest, not realizing that this particular seat belt system required passengers to first anchor a latch into a buckle on one side before latching it on the other. As such, Millburn had only secured her chest harness.

Yusufzai began driving on McKinney Avenue and through the intersection at North Fitzhugh Avenue, where he drove through a yellow light as it turned red and was struck on the passengers side by another vehicle being operated by Richard DeLeon. The van rolled onto its left side and then to its roof before coming to a complete rest. Millburn stayed in the vehicle hanging upside down from the chest harness on the seat belt, suffering a neck fracture. She was rendered quadriplegic.

Attorneys from a Dallas-based personal injury firm sought damages from each of the following parties:

• Raiser, LLC (Uber USA parent company)
• Uber USA, LLC
• Arian Yusufzai (the Uber driver)
• Dawood Kohistanti (the owner of the vehicle)
• Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (manufacturer of the vehicle)
• Uber Technologies, Inc., and;
• American Honda Motor Co. Inc.

The jury found that American Honda was negligent in the process of designing the minivan  and that their negligence caused Millburn’s injury. They found:

• American Honda 63% liable
• Yusufzai 32% liable; and,
• Milburn 5% liable

They determined that her damages totaled $37,615,817.64. Given that Millburn was found 5% liable in her own injury and a previous settlement with Yusufzai, the actual award was $23,697,965.11.