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*** PRESS CONFERENCE TOMORROW MARCH 18 ***
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, March 17, 2025
Contact:
Kevin Ready, media@llrlaw.com, (617) 823-1809
NYTWA: Bhairavi Desai, NYTWA1@aol.com, 917-945-7286
TLC Drivers Secure Landmark $140 Million Class Action Settlement with NYC
The settlement follows court ruling that, for years, TLC unconstitutionally deprived drivers of fair hearings to challenge their suspensions following arrest
New York, NY - Attorneys representing a class of nearly 20,000 taxi, app, or for-hire-vehicle drivers and the New York Taxi Workers Alliance announced today that they have reached a historic $140 million settlement with the City of New York, following 19 years of active litigation. The long-running federal court case challenged the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission’s failure to provide fair hearings allowing drivers to challenge their license suspensions following an arrest.
While the plaintiffs and their lawyers contend that 90% of the arrests that led to TLC driver license suspensions were found to be without merit or reduced to minor infractions, drivers collectively lost more than 3 million days of work from these suspensions between 2003 to 2020. The majority of the arrest charges were for misdemeanors and likely 80% of the arrests stemmed from events that occurred off-duty. Nevertheless, before the Court of Appeals ruled in this case, not a single driver was reinstated through the TLC’s hearing process. Drivers, their attorneys and the union say, this justice is long overdue.
WHO: Driver plaintiffs; Attorneys Dan Ackman, David Goldberg and Shannon Liss-Riordan; NYTWA Executive Director Bhairavi Desai
WHAT: Press conference to announce historic settlement between TLC drivers and City of New York
WHERE: Outside the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Courthouse, United State District Court, 500 Pearl St, New York, NY
WHEN: Tuesday, March 17, 2025 at 11 AM
Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (which is one of the plaintiffs in the case) extolled the groundbreaking settlement, explaining that “This historic – and long overdue - settlement is a semblance of justice for so many drivers whose lives were destroyed when they were presumed guilty, stripped of due process and left unable to work and have the time to fully defend their innocence after an unfair arrest. The victories in this case are a reminder of the dark period when cab drivers were treated as second-class citizens and the inalienable value of our constitutional rights as Americans.”
Attorney Dan Ackman, who began the case in 2006, said: “To suspend hardworking cabbies based on an arrest—not a conviction, just an arrest—and to follow it up with a sham hearing was always odd and outrageous. It was also unconstitutional as the Second Circuit held six years ago. Some compensation for drivers abused by this regime is long overdue.”
“That the City’s government, for decades, maintained and defended this unconstitutional lack of a fair hearing process is a shameful injustice—one rooted in failure to respect the humanity of tens of thousands of hard-working New Yorkers,” said attorney David Goldberg, who also represented the drivers. “This settlement is important, as is the change the drivers in this case were able to effect at the City’s Taxi and Limousine Commission.”
Attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan, who joined Ackman and Goldberg in the litigation and represented the drivers with him at trial and through the class certification process, said “While this litigation has dragged on for too long, we are glad to see the City of New York working with us to correct the wrong that was done to these drivers. We are very pleased to have finally achieved this historic and just result.”
Additional background:
During the years at issue in the case - 2003 to 2020 - nearly 20,000 taxi, app, or for-hire-vehicle drivers licensed by TLC were suspended based on arrests alone – before the drivers were convicted or even tried and without any consideration of the driver’s record or the facts underlying the arrest.
In 2006, a group of drivers, along with NYTWA, filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the TLC’s failure to provide drivers who had been summarily suspended based on an arrest a fair process to challenge their suspensions.
In 2019, a federal appeals court found TLC’s practices to be unconstitutional. Soon after, a federal district court certified the case as a class action and in 2023 ordered a test case jury trial for a random selection of class members. A federal jury found that the ten drivers who participated in the trial would have had their licenses reinstated quickly, if they had had the opportunity to present their side of the story through a fair hearing process.
Now, the plaintiffs have settled with the City of New York for $140 million over damages for the whole class.
As a result of the settlement, TLC drivers whose licenses were summarily suspended based on arrest may receive awards ranging from several hundred dollars to $36,000 or more, based upon the duration of their license suspension and other factors. The attorneys have filed for preliminary approval of the settlement by the court and once granted, class members will be notified of the process to file a claim.
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About the New York Taxi Workers Alliance
Founded in 1998, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) is the over 28,000-member strong union of NYC taxicab drivers, representing yellow cab drivers, green car, and black car drivers, including drivers for Uber and Lyft. NYTWA campaigns have won over $450 million in stolen wages for Uber, Lyft and yellow cab drivers and over $475 million in debt forgiveness for yellow cab medallion owner-drivers. On the forefront of organizing workers stripped of employee rights, NYTWA has won Unemployment Insurance for Uber and Lyft drivers as employees, industry-specific minimum wage regulation that cover drivers time in between trips (empty time) and paid sick leave (via settlement Attorney General made with companies in an investigation which stemmed from a wage theft complaint filed by NYTWA.) NYTWA's members have won livable income campaigns for drivers resulting in higher fare payments and lower expenses and for app-dispatched drivers, also annual adjustments for cost of living.
About Plaintiffs’ Counsel
Shannon Liss-Riordan of Lichten & Liss-Riordan, P.C. is a nationally recognized leader in class action and civil rights litigation. For decades, she has brought pioneering cases and won groundbreaking lawsuits that have shaped the law protecting workers in a variety of industries, including gig workers. She was joined in this case by partner Bradley Manewith.
Dan Ackman, of the Law Office of Daniel L. Ackman, is a long-time civil rights champion who has represented TLC drivers in post-deprivation license suspension hearings and other related litigation for decades. He initiated this case in 2006.
David T. Goldberg of Donahue & Goldberg is one of the nation’s premier appellate lawyers, specializing in constitutional and public law litigation. His civil rights work has earned him recognition as one of the "elite" members of the U.S. Supreme Court Bar, where he has regularly represented clients in significant public interest litigation.
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