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Uber Faces $410 Million Canadian Class Action Suit
farrellj writes: A class action suit has been filed by the Taxi and Limo drivers and owners in the Province of Ontario in Canada against Uber, demanding CAN$400 million in compensatory damages, $10 million in punitive damages. They claim Uber is violating the Ontario Highway Traffic Act that covers taxis and limos, and has caused them to lose money. They also seek an injunction against Uber operating in Ontario. "This protectionist suit is without merit," Uber said in a statement. "As we saw from a recent court ruling in Ontario, Uber is operating legally and is a business model distinct from traditional taxi services."
Was it someone speaking English as a second language or some kid on a cell phone?
..we don't have to obey those pesky laws! Our founders are all Libertarians/Randian Objectivists, laws are for poor people! Haven't you read Fountainhead?? Arblegarblewarble!!!
replace Mr. Jones from Animal Farm with Skynet, great.
always beat the small guys, so there's no way this lawsuit will go anywhere. Just as in the US, the CONservatives in Canada rule their judicial system. The banksters and the wealthy always win.
"Uber is violation the Ontario Highway Traffic Act"
"caused them to lost money"
Stop slacking and do your job
I would like to point out this is in Canada. Are you trying to call Great Britain a bastion of liberty now?
From TFA:
Here's a question for you, Mr. Lawyer: After you've gone through indictment, court proceedings, habeas corpus, public review, jury trial, appeals, evidence requirements, all the the other normal procedural due process, can you still be left with a verdict that is unfair and unjust, because the law itself is fundamentally unfair?
At least in the USA, the answer is yes, and that's known as violating substantive due process. It can also be an unconstitutional violation of the equal protection of the laws. Canada seems to call it fundamental justice.
tl;dr if it's even illegal at all, it's "illegal" the same way that not giving up your in front-of-bus seat, or marrying someone of a different race, is "illegal".
Wonder what the public key field is for?
So long as uber abides by all the laws regarding safety and insurance, the same laws as taxi companies have to, then it should be okay.
Two things to keep in mind - uber is owned by assholes. And it isn't ride SHARING if you are paying for it. Other than that, carry on.
losing money to another company is not an issue unless you are using unfair competitive practises. In this case they are claiming that is what Uber is doing by ignoring the regulations so they can undercut them.
This is one of the more insightful bits of investigative journalism I've read in a long time:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com...
Some quotes:
[...] one of the most compelling investigative projects ... in the Toronto taxicabs that I rode in so often on my way to assignments. I discovered that almost none of Torontoâ(TM)s city-issued taxi licenses â" known as âoeplatesâ â" were in the hands of working cab drivers. Instead, they were held by people who made others pay to use them.
[Taxi] plate holders included an airline pilot, a dentist, investors who lived in Florida and Israel, and estates that had inherited the licenses after the holder died. The problems created by the plate system were mind-boggling. At least 30 per cent of the industryâ(TM)s revenues went to people who did nothing but milk income from their licenses.
So the Toronto Taxi system is a cesspool of entitled leeches, and Uber â" which nonetheless seems to have a shady side to it â" seems to be doing some overdue jostling. Hence the ridiculous class action.
EEEK! EEEK! EEEEEEK! Penguins say EEEEEEK! What do penguins say EEEEK! EEEK!
EEEEK!
losing money to another company is not an issue unless you are using unfair competitive practises.
This is, of course, the backbone argument against Uber in many municipalities. Commercial Taxicabs are subject to many rules and regulations that Uber is not.
I don't think Uber is ignoring the regulations as much as they're challenging whether or not they have a right to exist.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
If I go to the convenience store and take a chocolate bar and I get away with it, am I fighting for my right to have chocolate bars for free?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
What's that? Like a whole buck American? Pay 'em in Mexican Pesos! NAFTA yeah!
The judge on the previous ruling said that there was "no evidence" that Uber was operating a Taxi broker service. So all they have to do is supply the evidence. They clearly are. The information can be gleaned from phones or Uber's own records.
Also, you don't just get to claim that your business model is distinct from traditional taxi services. That is up to the government to decide.
Beck Taxi has an app which allows you to hail cab in the same manner as Uber, and yet they have a valid license. because they have an app, are they now entitled to operate without commercial insurance, proper licensing and bonding?
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
and they were created by legislation spawned by powerful corporations successfully suppressing competition,
would you be wrong taking the sweets?
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Que Grumpy Cat Meme. Uber is a major part of the global race to the bottom all us wage slaves are caught up in. In every way possible their "drivers" are employees. They can't work for competitors, they have to carry the Uber phone and if they turn down too many rides they get fired (what the hell else would you call it?). The only little difference is they don't pay benefits, reimburse expenses, pay unemployment insurance or any of the other things regular employers do. In a society where your entire quality of life depends on your job it's kinda important to clearly define what a "job" is.
And for all you young comp-sci majors out there who want to chime in with how great your 1099 gig is; Uber is NOT THE SAME THING...
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Regulations do exist that make it more difficult for me to buy that chocolate bar. The store has to follow certain health and safety regulations, they have to pay their employees a certain amount, they have to keep their entrance free of snow and ice and basically spend time and money making themselves a safe place to do business. They may have to provide a certain number of parking spots. So what you are saying is that I can fight for my rights and take that chocolate bar.
Can you tell me if this same rule applies to jewelry stores?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
What a terrible analogy.
Sets say you go to the store to buy a chocolate bar, but when you get there they are all $20 each and you have to wait in line 30 minutes for one. So you go out and buy chocolate bars for $1 each and sell them for $5 and people only have to wait a minute or two to purchase them, the customers are very happy with this as they are getting what they wanted.
Now lets say the store that was selling the bars is now very pissed, because they have to pay the city $200,000 a year for the ability to sell chocolate bars and is now trying to sue you for violating the law.
Who is 'stealing', who is wrong?
so Uber's already got a judgement in favour, in Canada no less, and these dolts are like, what? The way I'm reading it, this would be like Microsoft suing Apple for taking PCOS marketshare.
Makes no fucking sense. I hope this suit is thrown out with costs.
Political debates have me rolling my eyes so much I think I got optical whiplash. I should sue. - Foamy The Squirrel
Stores are governed by many MANY more regulations than even the taxi industry and yes those costs are directly passed onto you when you buy a chocolate bar. What you have basically just said is that stealing chocolate bars from stores is ok.
So you go out and buy chocolate bars for $1 each and sell them for $5 and people only have to wait a minute or two to purchase them
And you don't bother getting a business license. Your business entrance isn't accessible to disabled people.
When asked whether you are insured against someone breaking their neck on your premises you mention that you've registered your place of business as your home, and that you have basic residential insurance. Besides its like having a garage sale... so its all casual and informal.
Sure its all organized and run by multi-billion dollar multi-national corporation... but other than connecting buyers with sellers with an app, handling all the money, advertising, and deciding who is allowed to participate, well... its still casual... like a garage sale.
Now, don't get me wrong, I have serious issues with the 'medallion' system and think its fundamentally wrong. But uber is a bunch of crooks.
The quandary is, as always, whether or not you continue the faith in your governors to make that d3cision for you.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Uber is just trying to make a buck. They're not a taxi service, they're just helping people who operate their personal vehicles like a taxi meet up with people who want to rent a taxi, just without all that legal red tape like worker proections or proper liability insurance in case of life threatening injury.
Canada: land of retrying a case until you win
---Round one:
City of Toronto: "Uber is a Taxi service!"
Canadian Judge: "No, it's not."
---Round two (this one):
Taxi driver: "Uber is a taxi service!"
Canadian Judge: (hope they get the same one) -- case in progress
---Round three:
Place your bets now!
Taxi drivers are upset that they finally have competition and for once they have to compete in a fair market place. If I need to get from point A to point B and my choices are a Taxi, or Uber, I'll always pick Uber because it's a better car, a better car ride, driven by someone who is actually qualified to drive me and someone who cares about more then earning a dollar. Taxi drivers are unsafe, unstable, wreckless, road navigators that ignore safety and rules all to make a dollar, It's time they learn that the public shouldn't have to put up with it.
Ebay: We're nothing like auctions.
Paypal: We're nothing like a bank.
If you're a tech company, claim you're nothing like has ever come before as to be immune to as many laws as possible.
God spoke to me
They have an interesting take on it.
The Globe and Mail's angle is quite a bit different: How Uber is ending the dirty dealings behind Toronto's cab business
Trolling is a art,
they also loop for loop holes when a kid is killed and driver auto insurance says that the diver is in working for uber at the time so they are not covered and the uber used the loop hole saying that the driver was not on a call at the time but was open and waiting for one.
Uber isn't paying Ontario taxes. Their entire "distinct business model" will quickly fall apart the moment they become forced to pay things like sales taxes.
It's not just the taxes themselves. Around here, paying taxes means you're regulated, and being regulated means that the government is responsible for the public safety surrounding you.
So the moment Uber gets forced to pay sales taxes, is the moment that they are forced to control their drivers, is the moment their drivers become employees, is the moment they get to pay employment taxes, is the moment they get to safety-certify the vehicles, is the moment their "distinct business model" needs to raise prices to cover all of the added expense.
That will take them half-way to taxi fares. What people don't know is that the big expensive taxi licence isn't simply a money-grab. It's specifically to reduce the number of taxis. Around here, we regulate in order to reduce competition. With a tenth the population of the USA, and even lower population density, there simply isn't enough business out there to support the number of taxis that would set out to try.
Unlike in the USA, where too much competition would eventually result in a natural balance, around here it results in an entire industry going belly-up -- i.e. no taxis at all.
So, the moment that Uber is large enough to compete in the full market, that market won't be big enough to support Uber, taxis, and the next new Uber-like competitor that would be able to destroy Uber instantly simply because they will be newer. And as a result of that market-is-too-small-to-support-the-low-cost-of-entry, we artificially raise the cost-of-entry with a nice expensive licence.
But hey, electric cars are cheaper because they don't pay gas prices...which are most road taxes. Do you honestly think that in a world of everyone-drives-an-electric-vehicle that there won't be road taxes?
Welcome to new "distinct business models". They work only while they are new. That's the distinct part.
What operating system and browser are you using? Somehow between that and Slashdot's servers your punctuation got badly mangled.
Which portions of the Highway Traffic Act are they alleged to actually be in violation of?
If they were no more specific in their actual allegation than the article was, Uber can win this one easily.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You are all cows. Cows say moo. MOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOOOO! Moo cows MOOOOOOOO! Moo say the cows. YOU COWS!!
to enforce the existing laws for _everyone_? Instead of just saying "Well, the plat owners are violating the law so it's OK if Uber does it too"?
Oh, and while I'm on the subject, Uber's choice of prey is slightly different. Uber requires a pretty nice car. The sort that you're run of the mill cabbie doesn't have. That's why cabbies get stuck renting their cars. Uber drivers are mostly desperate folks who just lost their job with a decent car from when they had one. The cab companies prey on recent immigrants. Uber preys on the recently unemployed.
Both practices are abhorrent. Let's shut 'em both down.
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Perhaps that explains why my company bUber (pronounced Boob Urge) has bee so tied up in the courts. The concept is simple our company iPimp arranges meetings of escorts in hotel rooms. The contractors are all independent contractors, making a little money, but really they are their to give their single serving friends, we call them rides, a hand. This is completely different from normal prostitution, it's a different bussiness model even though it fills the same niche. In places where whore houses are well regulated, inspected and liscenced one can see that we don't need to meet such requirements since our service producers are independent contractors. Our rates are lower since were just making connections between people who might not be full time whores. They just notify us when they are available and we make use of what would otherwise would have been wasted time. We have surge pricing for conventions and with that can get more providers on the street when they are needed.
Recently Uber approached us because it fits well with there model. Our providers need delivery to addresses, and their drivers can act as sales agents for us as well. But they are reluctant to merge with us until we can shake these ridiculous legal problems. We certainly are not a traditional whore house.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Once automated cars are in place, companies can simply become dispatching services for privately owned cars. Don't want to pay for parking in the city after your car drops you off at work? Let it drive around town and make money for you, then pick you up at the end of the day to drive you home. Then, it can pickup your neighbors as they leave the local bar at night, and it is ready for you, charged up in the morning.
The taxi industry has at most 5-10 years left in it. They should be petitioning that dispatch services need to own taxi medallion rights in order to dispatch for the next 10-15 years, so they can at least recoup some of their investment on the medallions by selling them to the new dispatch services.
Uber are micro travel agents. They use new tech to help people who want to travel to make arrangements with providers of travel services. Because the new tech makes it really quick, easy and cheap to book a voyage, it is economically viable to include short-distance car journeys in the range of products that they offer. Declare the Uber business model illegal today, and you will find yourself on a course that eliminates the entire travel agency business tomorrow.
If we really want retro services we should ban phone bookings of taxicabs. That makes the process too easy. Cabbies should do it the way they used to do in the good old days, cruise around all day waiting for someone to hail them from the curb. Cab companies that accept phone bookings compete unfairly with the cruising cab model. If you're concerned that this would result in more fuel being burned and more CO2 pollution we could always pass laws requiring cabbies to operate horse-drawn carriages instead of motorized vehicles.
Ah, the good old days.
And yet one party provides better service at a better price to more people, who (democratically!) vote with their wallets and clearly prefer one service over the other. If Uber is legal, then there is nothing preventing existing taxi companies from re-inventing themselves to cut costs and boost profits. If you believe in democracy and capitalism, let the money flow where it may, and may the company that out-competes the other win.
Now you are just poking holes in my analogy because YOU don't feel that stores are being unfair. Just the same way many people are saying taxi's are not being unfair. I feel that it is unfair for me to have to pay the costs that the store currently have, so while I am clad stores work for you with all their regulations I have decided that they don't work for me. I feel stores and regulations are more oppressive then the taxi industry.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Voting with your wallet has nothing to do with democracy. That's economics, not democracy. Democracy is what realized the need for regulation in the first place and put it there.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Reinventing themselves to be as competitive as Uber would require them to break laws, so no law abiding companies are not going to be able to do that.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
If regulations exist that diminish your ability to acquire a chocolate bar,
and they were created by legislation spawned by powerful corporations successfully suppressing competition,
would you be wrong taking the sweets?
Um, yes.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I have serious issues with the 'medallion' system
This appears to be a mainly US problem and does not reflect most people's experience of taxis. Where I live (UK), it certainly doesn't cost the hundreds of thousands that US posters often mention to get into the taxi business. It's not free, but nor is starting most businesses.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
they could easily buy limo and taxi plates and start legal taxi brokerages with the capital they have .. dumb idiots
In that case, you and your buddies are cordially invited to move yourselves to a private island where you can all live out your Anarcho-Capitalist fantasies to your heart's content.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are comfortable trading a level of inconvenience for reasonable assurance of accountability.
Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice.
I don't have to do anything but expect and wait for laws to be enforced. I'm happy the way things are. I'm fine with regulations to protect the food chain, drug manufacturing, farming.. I pay extra for all these things. Perhaps we pay a little extra for Taxis but we get benefits from that as well. To agree with Uber is to basically announce everyone's right to civil disobedience to almost everything.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
So what you're saying is, we don't trust the government. Totally acceptable. Doesn't mean I want to start allowing businesses to run afoul of the law in the name of not trusting the government. When corporations can also do whatever they want, things will be much much worse I assure you.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Uber is seeking to replace taxi drivers who scrape out a living with hobbyist looking to pick up a few bucks in their spare time.
Hope Uber looses and it bankrupts them.
Canadian UBER news finally made Slashdot (and doesn't mention the murders).
And yet one party provides better service at a better price to more people, who (democratically!) vote with their wallets and clearly prefer one service over the other.
And if sell big screen TVs cheap in private meetings in public spaces coordinated via craigslist listings? The product is sold as-is, no warranty, no box, no manuals, cash only.
And inventory acquisition? I don't know where the TVs come from; I buy them from independent contractors. Its up up to them to source the goods. I assume they obtain them legally, and I encourage them to follow all the applicable laws.
And in the meantime I'll have no trouble finding customers who "democratically" vote with their wallets and clearly prefer my services to purchasing them at retail prices in retail stores.
I'm not sure you should be drawing any grand conclusions about how good my business model is from that though.
No. You want that, go to Panama City. I'm told the taxi license costs about $300, and there are very little requirements about roadworthiness, but that's not really the point. The good points are that you can almost always get a cab, you agree on a fare before you get in, and taxis will pick up more than one fare at a time.
The bad parts are that the drivers are free to discriminate using prices or refusal of service, and do so as a matter of course, and that even if you get the cab, they may not take you more than a few blocks because of congestion. Traffic is awful down there, even after the introduction of the subway. This is due in no small part to the financial incentive which puts thousands of taxis on the roads. Also, the fares are absurdly low, which is good for the passenger, but without regulation you're going to end up with poorly maintained vehicles and drivers that are barely scraping by, because you can't really cut costs any other way.
All Panama City needs is an app, and then it will be Uber's Utopia. I don't know if I would want to take a cab in that world, but I sure as shit wouldn't want to be a driver.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Slashdot encodes its page with latin1, so UTF8/unicode characters become "lost in translation".
There was a lengthy discussion of this on slashdot several (many?) years ago. I cannot seem to find it offhand.
"I don't know where the TVs come from"
I've said before that lack of regulation invites corruption and here it is. Good for you and your plausible deniability but if you're selling something it is concerning that you don't know where they come from.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
if you're selling something it is concerning that you don't know where they come from.
Just as uber asserts that it assumes its drivers are properly licensed and insured to operate as a car service transporting passengers commercially; and the vehicles would pass all safety requirements. Right?
That is the 'product' they are selling.
It isn't always better service. Uber drivers are going to get into accidents, just like any other group of people who spend a lot of time driving. Some of the accidents are going to be their fault, and are going to cost other people money. This is why drivers are normally required to have insurance: they're maneuvering large masses at high speeds, resulting in a lot of kinetic energy, and if that kinetic energy goes wrong it can cost a lot of money. Also, if they're going to be on the road all the time, they're usually held to a higher driving standard and require a special license, to reduce the risk to other people.
Uber apparently wants to cut costs by endangering the public. It's much like if a company moved into town, disregarded all environmental laws, and passed the savings on to you.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Starwman arguments are lies.