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Toronto taxi owners sue city for $1.7 billion over arrival of Uber, lost plate value

cryptoadam

Banned
Toronto taxi owners sue city for $1.7 billion over arrival of Uber, lost plate value

Toronto taxi owners and operators have launched a $1.7-billion class action lawsuit alleging the city has failed to properly regulate the private transportation industry and caused the value of taxi plates to plummet.
Three plaintiffs who are owners and operators of taxi services — Lawrence Eisenberg of Lucky 7 Taxi, Behrouz Khamza of Taxi Action and Sukhvir Thethi of Ambassador Taxi — are named as plaintiffs in a statement of claim filed to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Aug. 21.


They accuse the city of being negligent in its enforcement of bylaws against Uber and other private transportation companies.
The city solicitor’s office filed a statement of defence in September, denying all the allegations and calling for the outright dismissal of the lawsuit.
Both sides are currently waiting for the judge’s certification of the case. Lawyers for the plaintiffs are seeking other licence-holders to join the suit.
“This whole thing has become like a joke,” said Eisenberg about the state of a taxi industry he has been part of for 55 years. He says about five years ago a taxi plate was worth nearly $400,000 but with the arrival of ride-share companies Uber and Lyft, that has decreased to about $30,000.
The lawsuit’s $1.7-billion figure represents the total loss in value for roughly 5,500 licensed taxi plates in the city, approximately $310,000 each since the arrival of the ride-share services, according to the statement of claim.
“My retirement just went down the tubes over the last couple of years,” Eisenberg said, blaming the city for failing to regulate the new companies “until after the fact.”
In the 10-page statement of claim, the plaintiffs say the city has regulated the taxi industry since 1957 and has always acknowledged the value of a taxi plate — even congratulating a new plate owner on obtaining a “pension” for retirement.
The city has allowed the transfer, sale or lease of the taxi plates and collected “vast sums” from these transactions, ranging from $3,000 to $5,000 each, according to the statement of claim.

In a short statement, city spokesperson Bruce Hawkins said the city has filed its defence “indicating our plan to have this matter heard by the court.”
In its statement of defence, filed on Sept. 20, the city says it is not responsible for any economic devaluation of taxi plates. The city also denies ever referring to taxi plates as a “pension” or form of retirement and says it would not be reasonable for the plaintiffs to rely on such a statement if it was made.
In its statement, the city also denies that it owes any duty to the plaintiffs by virtue of the fact taxi owners require licences to operate, nor their belief in their licences as an asset or form of retirement security.

The arrival of Uber and UberX saturated the taxi transportation industry and caused “considerable financial damage” to taxi plate owners, according to the plaintiffs’ statement of claim, which says there are now anywhere between 50,000 and 75,000 vehicles for hire in the city.
“The city failed to protect the various segments of the Toronto taxi industry — specifically those of plate owners — and the public, and was thus, negligent,” the statement reads, alleging the city in 2016 formally allowed Uber to enter a marketplace “in which they had been illegally operating without due regard to the interests of plate owners and the safety of the public.”
The city’s statement of defence explains steps it took to regulate the arrival of Uber and other tech-based transportation companies — including a failed 2014 court applicationseeking to stop Uber from operating without the taxicab broker licence.
Eisenberg said all he and his colleagues in the taxi industry want now is “an equal playing field.”
“We have cameras in our cars, we have meters in our cars, safety certificates, stickers,” he said.
“If we have to have all these safety items, why shouldn’t they?”
In its statement of defence, the city says it handled the arrival of Uber with “discretion as to the appropriate balancing of competing interests and priorities. The city is not liable in negligence for the manner in which it exercised this legislative authority,” the statement argues.
“If prices for the sale of taxicabs or the income earned by owners has decreased, the decrease is the result of market forces beyond the city’s control for which it is not responsible, and are an expression of consumer preferences that taxicabs have failed to satisfy.”

So two shit sides of the same industry going after each other. Taxi's ran a cartel for years, and Uber is a giant piece of shit company. Its hard to take a side on this one.

I do think the city screwed these drivers by regulating and limiting the plates, and then allowing Uber/Lyft to come in with no need of regulation or plates to take Taxi companies lunches. OTOH these plate/medallion owners clearly running a racket and having a plate be worth 400 000$ is crazy when you think of it.

I don't think the city owes them 1.7 billion dollars, but the regulations they put in place also lead to both the incredible increase in value and then decrease in value of these plates.

The city basically limited the market, which allowed the plate owners to run up the value of the plates, and then by allowing Uber/Lyft to do the same thing a plate owner does but without needing a plate they allowed the value of the market they limited to crash down.
 

Moneal

Member
Toronto taxi owners sue city for $1.7 billion over arrival of Uber, lost plate value



So two shit sides of the same industry going after each other. Taxi's ran a cartel for years, and Uber is a giant piece of shit company. Its hard to take a side on this one.

I do think the city screwed these drivers by regulating and limiting the plates, and then allowing Uber/Lyft to come in with no need of regulation or plates to take Taxi companies lunches. OTOH these plate/medallion owners clearly running a racket and having a plate be worth 400 000$ is crazy when you think of it.

I don't think the city owes them 1.7 billion dollars, but the regulations they put in place also lead to both the incredible increase in value and then decrease in value of these plates.

The city basically limited the market, which allowed the plate owners to run up the value of the plates, and then by allowing Uber/Lyft to do the same thing a plate owner does but without needing a plate they allowed the value of the market they limited to crash down.
who lobbied for those regulations? If the taxi companies did, they did so to keep others out of their business, they deserve exactly what they got.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
who lobbied for those regulations? If the taxi companies did, they did so to keep others out of their business, they deserve exactly what they got.

Thats what I am not too sure on, so if you can expand? Is it the Taxi drivers that wanted a limited plate system or was it the city? I guess in Toronto and in general?

I am not really on the Taxi side since they created a racket and it seems like they had the government protect them through regulation, but then they just allowed Uber/Lyft to come in and skirt all those regulations.
 

Moneal

Member
Thats what I am not too sure on, so if you can expand? Is it the Taxi drivers that wanted a limited plate system or was it the city? I guess in Toronto and in general?

I am not really on the Taxi side since they created a racket and it seems like they had the government protect them through regulation, but then they just allowed Uber/Lyft to come in and skirt all those regulations.
i would wager that the larger taxi companies went to the city to push for a limited system. no easier way to squash competition than have the government do it for you.

NYC cab owners had their case against the city thrown out last year. The judge ruled that since the cabs have sole ability to pick up street fares, stricter regulations were reasonable. I can't find anything about appeals or anything more recent.
 
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Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Im an accountant and one of our clients is buttmad cuz they run a taxi cab co. and got blown the FUCK out by Uber/Lyft lmao
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Make sense.

Don't get me wrong. I think taxis can be scummy in terms of the stink of the cars and the fact it's a price fixed kind of thing..... BUT to be fair they require people who have taxi plates which cost mega money.

So I don't get how any city government that runs this way (taxi plates) can force it on some car services, but for others like Uber they don't have to. And then these drivers can undercut the taxi guys whose needed the taxi medallion for decades.

Am I missing something why one set needs the plate, and the other can do what it wants?
 

Moneal

Member
Make sense.

Don't get me wrong. I think taxis can be scummy in terms of the stink of the cars and the fact it's a price fixed kind of thing..... BUT to be fair they require people who have taxi plates which cost mega money.

So I don't get how any city government that runs this way (taxi plates) can force it on some car services, but for others like Uber they don't have to. And then these drivers can undercut the taxi guys whose needed the taxi medallion for decades.

Am I missing something why one set needs the plate, and the other can do what it wants?
again who pushed for the rules? who benefited from limiting the amount of licenses?
 

Makariel

Member
So two shit sides of the same industry going after each other. Taxi's ran a cartel for years, and Uber is a giant piece of shit company. Its hard to take a side on this one.
giphy.gif


There was always resistance against disruptive technology, and attempts of stopping such with legislation. I'm curious to see what the outcome will be. If you were to force me to choose a side, I'd rather side with local taxi companies over a multinational behemoth that ignores local laws, rules and common decency as it sees fit. I don't use uber myself, there's just too much that rubs me the wrong way with that company.
 

Moneal

Member
a pretty relevant article to the topic for a little background: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/glo...behind-torontos-cab-business/article25515301/


one quote that stood out for me:

After my investigation of the industry, my name was mud among the city's taxi plate holders, who were worried about losing their golden goose. One woman, who inherited a pair of plates from her father, called me a "communist" for recommending that the taxi plate system be abolished. "This is free enterprise," she declared.

All I can say to that is:

21aqbc.jpg
 

Papa

Banned
Thats what I am not too sure on, so if you can expand? Is it the Taxi drivers that wanted a limited plate system or was it the city? I guess in Toronto and in general?

I am not really on the Taxi side since they created a racket and it seems like they had the government protect them through regulation, but then they just allowed Uber/Lyft to come in and skirt all those regulations.

If it's anything like the taxi cartel in Australia, the licensing is setup so that it's a prohibitive barrier to entry for any competitor. They lobbied the government to have this system in place then got fucked over by a new technology that they didn't see coming and didn't plan for. They made their bed, now they don't want to lie in it.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
giphy.gif


There was always resistance against disruptive technology, and attempts of stopping such with legislation. I'm curious to see what the outcome will be. If you were to force me to choose a side, I'd rather side with local taxi companies over a multinational behemoth that ignores local laws, rules and common decency as it sees fit. I don't use uber myself, there's just too much that rubs me the wrong way with that company.

Both suck. Uber apperantly is cheaper and better service, but they also treat their "employees" like shit, most don't even make minimum wage, and everything is essentially off loaded onto the driver. And I put employees in scare quotes because Uber will do anything to avoid calling their drivers employees.

But OTOH Taxi's run a monopoly, horde their plates, kept out competition, and treat their customers like shit to be sucked dry.

I support someone disrupting the Taxi industry, but not how Uber is doing it.
 

Weiji

Banned
This kinda reminds me of union retirement contracts. You write up a terrible contract, you get mad when that contract can’t be fulfilled.

On the one hand you had a contract and I agree that it’s bullshit it’s not being honored.

On the other hand you intentionally created a self beneficial situation at the expense of others, and now you’re upset it got wrecked. I have trouble with sympathy.
 
All it takes to side with the poor cabbies is to continue to put up with their bullshit in the face of convenience, and as always open those wallets up a little bit more.

This is actually a tiny little slice of the greater argument our society has been debating for decades; what is the value of the middle class in the face of low cost and convenience? I use UBER all the time for work to get from my day cab to a hotel, mostly because my company doesn't want to pay $30 to take me 2 miles. Also cab dispatch takes a minimum of 30 minutes where I live, where I can get an uber in 5 minutes most of the time.
 

camelCase

Member
Good, fuck ride sharing services. I can't count how many times I've seen a front page story of a livery driver or cabbie committing suicide because their lives have been ruined by Uber and their ilk.

There are many working class schmucks who had their futures butchered from uber. That's how capitalism works yada yada but really, I would much rather see uber burn than the working class sods who had to slave just for the hope of affording a medallion cab.
 

pel1300

Member
Uber is a godsend in countries like India where the tuk tuk drivers are lazy fucks who try to scam tourists by charging 10X the normal rate.

I was shocked when I tried uber for the first time in India...shocked that I was in a car with AC and that the cost was so much lower than those crap Tuk Tuks.

Seriously....in some cases, uber is good. Taxi drivers in third world countries are the worst scum I've come across.
 

Moneal

Member
All it takes to side with the poor cabbies is to continue to put up with their bullshit in the face of convenience, and as always open those wallets up a little bit more.

This is actually a tiny little slice of the greater argument our society has been debating for decades; what is the value of the middle class in the face of low cost and convenience? I use UBER all the time for work to get from my day cab to a hotel, mostly because my company doesn't want to pay $30 to take me 2 miles. Also cab dispatch takes a minimum of 30 minutes where I live, where I can get an uber in 5 minutes most of the time.

Good, fuck ride sharing services. I can't count how many times I've seen a front page story of a livery driver or cabbie committing suicide because their lives have been ruined by Uber and their ilk.

There are many working class schmucks who had their futures butchered from uber. That's how capitalism works yada yada but really, I would much rather see uber burn than the working class sods who had to slave just for the hope of affording a medallion cab.

If you guys read the article I linked earlier, you would know that the very few cabbies actually own the medallions or cabs they drive. most are owned by businesses or even people that don't live in Toronto, that rent the cabs out.

Just a snip from the article:
For my return trip, I called Diamond Taxi. The driver fit a template I knew only too well. He was a middle-aged immigrant man, stuck in the cab industry because there was nothing else. He'd been at work since 6 a.m. Like almost every other driver in the city, he didn't own his car. Instead, he rented one for $80 per day. This was for a 12-hour day shift. Another driver rented the car at night for $90.

A large chunk of these rental charges go toward leasing the Toronto cab plate attached to the car. The Diamond driver had two hours left in his 12-hour shift. I asked him how much he had grossed for the day. He pulled it up on his meter: $109.

He had to pay $80 for the day rental, plus fuel. By the end of the day, he estimated, he would net between $20 and $40. He said that he has started supplementing his income by registering as an Uber driver and doing pickups in his cab.

"Why not?" he said. "It works."
 

LOLCats

Banned
Whatever at a taxi cab plate being worth 400,000$

That in itself is a crime. Uber and lyft are shit, but so is the taxi cab industry. Fuck em.
 

Solomeena

Banned
Cabbies fucked themselves. Before Uber and Lyft cabbies kept pushing for higher and higher fares and boom along comes Uber and Lyft to put them in check.
 

Dirk Benedict

Gold Member
Uber has gotten a drunken me home safely for a mere 5 bucks. A taxi could have potentially cost me around 15 bucks. Taxis got caught with their pants down and Toronto isn't the only place where they are feeling the pain.
 

camelCase

Member
If you guys read the article I linked earlier, you would know that the very few cabbies actually own the medallions or cabs they drive. most are owned by businesses or even people that don't live in Toronto, that rent the cabs out.

Just a snip from the article:
Oh, then that's a lot better than individuals having hundreds of thousands of debt.
 

cryptoadam

Banned
Ironically the Quebec government is actually paying our cabbies a 250 million dollar bail out.

Basically these plate owners are going to get some sort of last ditch bail out from TOR before they probably get out of the business. And with automated cars coming up anyways.
 
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