In another seizure gone awry, TLC inspectors ticketed a black man as an illegal cabbie after spotting him drop off a white passenger. That passenger turned out to be his wife, leading to a lawsuit in a Queens county court, according reports in the Daily News. and in DNAinfo.
The Queens couple, Dan Keys Jr., 66, and Symone Palermo, 53, filed a racial bias action (claiming a whopping $3 million in damages) against the city and the Taxi and Limousine Commission, claiming they were unlawfully targeted on May 2013 by agents who assumed that a black man dropping off a white woman must be a cabdriver, or, in this case an unlicensed cabdriver providing an illegal ride.
This is the third black eye in a week for the TLC aggressive car seizure program, the first being an claim by one of the TLC's own inspectors that his agency acts recklessly in issuing summons, the second being a summons and car seizure of a driver who gives free rides to cancer patients.
in the latest case, the husband and wife both received summonses — the wife was ticketed as the registered owner of the car — and the agents allegedly continued the charade to cover up their mistake, according to court papers.
While the TLC-issued summonses were dismissed, the couple lost use of the car for a week.
TLC mouthpiece Alan Fromberg, who is rarely at a loss when denouncing drivers, refused comment.
In the past the TLC has boasted that it seizes 8000 cars annually, and that it is looking to increase that number.
Additional links:
If your car has been seized, click here.
Former TLC Chairman David Yassky often bragged about the ever-increasing number of cars his agency was seizing as unlicensed taxis, sometimes more than 1000 per month. Indeed, the limiting factor was said not to be the number of unlicensed cabs on the streets, but the space to store seized vehicles.
Last week, though, a TLC inspector said that he and his colleagues often stopped and seized cars because of pressure from enforcement-unit brass. These inspectors have grabbed cars without adequate evidence or reasonable suspicion that the drivers were working as illegally as unauthorized cabbies.
Inspector practices appear to often include aggressively questioning passengers who are dropped off at airports about whether they paid for the ride. If the flummoxed passengers-- who naturally wonder wonder why they are being questions-- don't give a sufficiently clear statement that they did not pay, the inspectors stop the driver, issue a summons to the drive and sometimes to the car owner as well. Each can call for a fine of $1500.
In one egregious example, last week inspectors seized a car belonging to a charity that gives rides to cancer patients.
In addition to the possible fine, the car owner has to to both the TLC and to an impound lot at another location to retrieve the vehicle at an additional cost of several hundred dollars. It's not at all clear, however, whether the seizures are lawful where the car's driver is perfectly capable of driving it away and no crime is charged.
If your car has been seized, click here.
