{"id":290403,"date":"2026-07-08T16:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T16:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/290403\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T16:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T16:04:07","slug":"nearly-20000-nyc-taxi-livery-and-rideshare-drivers-win-140-million-settlement-in-20-year-old-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/290403\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 20,000 NYC taxi, livery and rideshare drivers win $140 million settlement in 20-year-old case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Drivers making a living off fares<\/a> who argued a policy wasn\u2019t fair for suspending their license after arrests, often downgraded or dropped, have prevailed after 20 years and obstacles along the road to judgment.<\/p>\n

United States Second District Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard J. Sullivan, on June 30, approved an up to $140 million settlement for about 19,500, including cabbies, Uber, Lyft, black car, and other Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC)<\/a>-licensed drivers.<\/p>\n

The class against New York City and the TLC includes drivers suspended based on arrests between June 28, 2003, and Feb. 18, 2020. The TLC has since modified its process. One-quarter of the settlement, or $35 million, would go to attorneys.<\/p>\n

Judge Sullivan said the proposed settlement is believed to \u201cbe the largest due-process settlement ever reached by the City of New York\u201d and \u201cone of the largest due-process settlements in the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The $140 million settlement fund would pay out up to $36,000 per person, plus $15,000 for named plaintiffs.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cBy any measure, this nearly 20-year lawsuit stands apart,\u201d Judge Sullivan wrote before citing \u201cthe historic nature of the settlement.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Daniel Ackman, a Manhattan lawyer in private practice who specializes in representing cabbies, filed the initial complaint in 2006.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cNo lawsuit should be old enough to go to college. This one obviously is,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause it took so long, the damages increased. The TLC kept doing what we said was illegal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ackman said the TLC, for many years, suspended licenses \u201cbased on an arrest, not a conviction,\u201d while denying \u201cdrivers fair post-suspension hearings.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe won the lawsuit a couple of years ago, had it certified as a class action, and attorneys reached a settlement with the City,\u201d said Bhairavi Desai, executive director of Taxi Workers Alliance, a union for TLC drivers and an AFL-CIO affiliate, representing over 28,000 members. \u201cIt has been a long and slow road to victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA yellow NYC taxi van crosses the Brooklyn Bridge.Photo via Getty Images<\/p>\n

A TLC spokesperson said the agency has long since ended the practice at the core of the suit, which alleged drivers were being deprived of their livelihood without fair hearings or appeals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take the rights of our drivers and their fair treatment seriously,\u201d the spokesperson said, adding the TLC in 2020 \u201camended the processes relevant to this case\u201d in ways that\u00a0 \u201cdemonstrate the agency\u2019s commitment to protecting the rights of taxi drivers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

How lawsuit stopped an unconstitutional suspension practice<\/p>\n

The case started when Jonathan Nnebe, a taxi driver since 1992 and Queens resident, became the initial named plaintiff. His license was suspended after two passengers who leaped out of his cab without paying filed charges.<\/p>\n

Ackman said he knew others were in similar situations due to a process that punished drivers upon accusation, not adjudication, with no real appeal.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always believed it was a class action,\u201d Ackman said. \u201cWe knew this wasn\u2019t happening to a few people. This was a systemic thing.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The attorneys argued that cab drivers unconstitutionally lost their license automatically upon arrest, with little to no chance of appeal.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had many drivers in this predicament. I remember thinking this is such a kangaroo court,\u201d said Desai. \u201cThere was a feeling of presumed guilt.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Attorney David Goldberg appeared in 2009 before the first appeal, and Boston-based Lichten & Liss-Riordan has been involved since 2019.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe initially lost, and we appealed,\u201d Desai continued. \u201cThe case was sent back down to the judge, and we eventually won.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

New York-based international law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson joined for the trial.\n<\/p>\n

Law firms representing plaintiffs collectively would receive 25%, $35 million, less than 33% retainers 8,200 plaintiffs signed with a means of dividing to be determined.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think of quitting. Once you\u2019re committed to a class action lawsuit, you have to see it through. I can\u2019t tell you what our odds of winning were,\u201d Ackman said. \u201cI always thought we\u2019d win eventually.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Sullivan wrote the case also entailed \u201cnovel legal questions that necessitated resolution by the Second Circuit on two separate occasions\u201d and that damage trials would exceed the settlement and take roughly 1,600 business days or six years.<\/p>\n

Based on an Aug. 13, 2025, fairness hearing, 533 who requested damages hearings would get $700 for suspensions up to 25 days, while 596 who requested hearings suspended for 391 days or longer would receive $36,000.<\/p>\n

Another 201 suspended for 25 days or fewer who didn\u2019t request damages hearings would get $262.50, while 178 suspended for 391 days or more who didn\u2019t request hearings would receive $13,500.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe amount each gets depends on how long their suspension was and whether they made a request for a hearing,\u201d Ackman said.\n<\/p>\n

New York City urged the Court to limit class counsel\u2019s fees to 3.5 percent up to $4.9 million, although the judge said city attorneys noted proper fees should be $5 million to $7 million.<\/p>\n

The judge cited time and labor, magnitude, complexity, risk, and quality of representation as well as the 33 percent retainer fee.\u00a0 \u201cThe Court finds that each factor favors the requested award,\u201d the judge wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cProlonged litigation will only further delay recovery for plaintiffs,\u201d the Judge\u00a0 continued, calling the amounts \u201cfair, reasonable, and adequate.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

He said plaintiffs\u2019 response \u201chas been overwhelmingly positive\u201d and that \u201cpercentage,\u201d not \u201clodestar\u201d or hourly method of paying attorneys, is more common.\n<\/p>\n

Lodestar calculates a \u201cpresumptively reasonable fee\u201d by multiplying the attorneys\u2019 \u201creasonable hourly rate,\u201d but he said the percentage \u201caligns with the overwhelming trend.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like winning the World Series, where it\u2019s all of a sudden. It\u2019s a process,\u201d Ackman said. \u201cNo money has changed hands yet. We won\u2019t know how much everybody gets until the claims period is over.\u201d<\/p>\n

The drivers\u2019 union is happy, but waiting for funds to arrive for drivers whose meters have been running for decades.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t turn back time and make up for the losses that people suffered. We hope this will give them a semblance of a better future,\u201d Desai said. \u201cWe will only breathe a sigh of relief once the checks are in the hands of the drivers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Drivers making a living off fares who argued a policy wasn\u2019t fair for suspending their license after arrests,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96441,110989,110990,110991,110992,110993,9,110994,110995,56,63,65,64,81183,4153,110996,51167,110997,110998,110999],"class_list":["post-290403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-class-action-lawsuit","tag-constitutional-rights-case","tag-drivers-compensation","tag-due-process-settlement","tag-legal-settlement-nyc","tag-license-suspension-policy","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-lawsuit","tag-new-york-tlc-reforms","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-richard-j-sullivan","tag-second-circuit-court","tag-taxi-drivers-rights","tag-taxi-workers-alliance","tag-tlc-drivers","tag-uber-lyft-drivers","tag-wrongful-suspension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}