Sure, she has her back covered by the Mayor in order to protect his brother's $$$$ interest in the ILLEGAL transportation companies. Conflict of interest? You bet! The city puts cab drivers and owners through grueling testing, then allows these companies to operate. Speed cameras put up for safety of Chicago residents, while allowing anyone to drive their private car, no check as to who the driver is nor if the car is insured and 50 members on the City Council approve of this? Time to find out who approved and vote them out next election along with this Mayor!
Unfortunately, even the plaintiff's lawyers totally didn't get what they were arguing for. The Chicago medallions were franchises sold by the city. They did not eliminate competition. Rather, they limited competition in the arena of METERED transportation for hire. The entire definition of a taxicab is a vehicle for hire that makes contracts for transportation based on a mutually agreed standard of consideration where both parties agree to trust the meter to determine the fair price of the ride. It is this aspect that defines a taxicab and distinguishes it from limousines and other types of vehicle for hire. The agreement to defer to the taximeter offers a great deal of flexibility in how transportation may be had. It allows the passenger an element of spontaneity not available in other forms of transportation for hire. Another distinction is the nearly forgotten distinction between common carriers and contract carriers. The video and the subsequent court decision made the "horse and buggies" comparison... showing complete ignorance of the fact that METERED taxicabs were originally horses and buggies themselves. Judge Richard Posner glaringly showed his ignorance of the true nature of the issue in this regard. Metered transportation has one weakness: How does the passenger know he can trust the meter to be fair? That's where regulation comes in. The passenger can trust the meter the same way that Deli customers can trust the weight of pastrami they have bought, and motorist can trust the amount of gasoline that was dispensed into their tanks. We rely on the state to make sure the deli scales and gas pumps are accurate. Similarly, taxi passengers rely on the government to make sure that the taximeters are accurate through government regulation and inspection. This is an efficient system of regulation that has worked very well for over a century. The difference in contractual nature between a taxicab and a limousine is that since the taxicab is metered, the entire nature of consideration does not need to be agreed upon in advance of the ride, but can be determined on the fly. The limousine contract involves a pre-agreed pricing function based on time a pre-arranged itinerary. Such pre-arrangement of the itinerary is not necessary in a taxicab since the meter is the agreed-upon arbiter of the fare. But for the fact that the meter is regulated, the taxi contract with the passenger would be one of "I'll take you where you tell me to take you, and you agree to pay whatever I say the fare is at the end of the ride." Such an arrangement would be clearly unconscionable. Conscionability is saved in this case by state regulation of the meter. In at least a few statutory schemes, the essential difference between taxicabs and limousines is "metered" vs. "unmetered." This is a true dichotomy such that there can be no third category. Metered vs. unmetered is all encompassing. If Uber were proposing contracts similar to the contracts for hire contemplated by limousines, then Uber would essentially be limousines (the luxury vehicle aspect is not relevant to the real distinction). But Uber isn't doing that. They are using unregulated meters to determine the fare, and thus, despite their argument to the contrary, Uber vehicles ARE taxicabs. They were just taxicabs without medallions, which makes them gypsy cabs. Since gypsy cabs are illegal, Uber is essentially a criminal enterprise. Anyone who supports Uber has no business ever talking in favor of the rule of law. Saying that taxicab medallions create a protected monopoly is a glaring mischaracterization of the regulatory scheme. Under the scheme, there can be hundreds of competing taxicab companies. Uber, on the other hand, IS a functional monopoly. Claiming that Uber isn't a monopoly because Lyft is like saying Google isn't a monopoly because Bing. Both argument are ludicrous on their faces. In the very early days of taxicabs, there were few if any regulations. In large cities, this scenario quickly led to a "tragedy of the commons" phenomenon where there was a plethora of taxicabs, each of which earned so little that they were unable to properly maintain their vehicles to a reasonable standard of safety, and thus exposed the passengers to unnecessary risk. There were also drivers shooting each other over fares. While "property" does not include the right to be free from competition, purchasing a franchise does include the right to enjoy LIMITED competition. If you buy a McDonald's franchise, you can't put it just anywhere you like. McDonald's corporation has agreements with existing franchises that limit where other McDonald's can be. Like McDonald's corporation, a city is a corporation that has the right and the power to both provide and regulate public transportation. Nobody would question the right of the city to determine how many city buses are the correct number to provide optimum service. Taxicabs can be thought of as merely a privatized form of municipal public transportation. The city has sold franchises to private operators of this public transportation. If the city sells too many, then the tragedy of the commons looms its head. If it sells too few, then the city does not adequately service the public transportation demand. The city chooses a number that strikes the best balance between the two - enough taxicabs to service demand without having so many as to lead to the tragedy of the commons situation. The entire point of the regulation is to limit the number of taxicabs in the city, and that's pretty much all the medallions do. Since the medallions can be sold, they are property. Uber argues that they should not be subject to the regulations because they are not taxicabs. They also argue that to require Uber to have medallions would make their business unprofitable. Why? Because their entire business model is undercutting the existing market so as to drive competition out of business? We have laws against this kind of behavior. It's called the Sherman act. If you buy a franchise from McDonalds to open up a new restaurant, McDonald's will tell you where you can locate it. But if you want to buy a franchise from an existing franchisee that has already been built up, expect to pay a whole lot more for it than McDonald's is charging for a new franchise. It's no different with Taxi medallions. Buying an existing medallion from an owner is buying into an industry that has already been built up by entrepreneurs who took the risk. There is much less risk buying a going concern, and the price reflects that. Medallions are definitely property. While the nature of property does not include the right to limited competition, the nature of a franchise does. The entire value of the property is that it is a franchise, whose entire value is to limit competition. That's why medallions cost 6 figures while an annual suburban taxicab permit costs a couple hundred bucks. To say that the medallion holder has no right to expect limited competition is to say that they have all bought shares in the Brooklyn Bridge. To destroy the limitation on competition is to destroy all economic benefit of the medallion. This is part and parcel a taking under US Takings clause jurisprudence.
Disruptive Technology argument is bogus. The Taxi industry created hail-by- app long before Uber copied it. TaxiMagic was rolled out in 40 cities years before Uber was rolled out in one city. Except for payment method, it's essentially the exact same app.
