Class Action Accuses NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission of Conducting Illegal Undercover Street Hail Stops

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A proposed class action seeks to challenge the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission’s (TLC) allegedly unconstitutional practice of targeting drivers through undercover street hail operations and issuing them tickets for unlicensed taxi driving.

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The 19-page lawsuit was filed by a Queens resident who claims his constitutional rights were violated when, on March 8, 2022, a TLC officer dressed in plain clothes approached his car outside Terminal 5 at John F. Kennedy Airport, baited him into agreeing to give him a ride and then signaled another officer to issue him a summons involving a hefty fine.

The lawsuit, which also names as defendants TLC Commissioner David Do and the City of New York, alleges that the TLC has a “long-established” pattern of indiscriminately stopping, questioning and ticketing drivers, typically as they are coming and going from JFK and LaGuardia airports.

As part of these allegedly illegal undercover street hail operations, the filing says, “an officer without any articulable suspicion or justification stops a party plaintiff and guilt provokes them with a sense of emergency and manufactured crisis to get them to give them a ride for payment.”

The plaintiff says he was dropping a friend off at JFK airport when the TLC agent tapped on his window and offered $40 for a ride to a specific destination. The plaintiff says he didn’t want to drive the man but agreed to take him partway for free after the officer told him a “guilt provoking story” about how he could not get a lift and his wife was pregnant. When the man left, purportedly to get his wife, a uniformed officer approached the car and issued the plaintiff a ticket, the complaint relays.

The plaintiff’s case was presented in front of the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH) on October 19, 2022, where his summons was dismissed after the OATH hearing officer found there was “no clear credible testimony or evidence” that the plaintiff participated in unlicensed for hire activity since he did not accept the $40, the filing notes.

“The dismissal of the violation against [the plaintiff], clearly demonstrates that the pretext for issuing the violation was unconstitutional from the start,” the complaint says, claiming that the stops are unlawful under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

According to the filing, the defendants have further violated citizens’ Eighth Amendment rights by imposing excessive civil fines for “deterrent and retributive purposes.”

The lawsuit looks to represent anyone ticketed in the five boroughs of New York City for violations under section 19-505 or 19-506 of New York law within the last three years.

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