July 5, 2001
Page One Feature

New York City Cabbies Dread
Day in Taxi-Regulation Court

By BROOKS BARNES
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

NEW YORK -- On a sticky summer morning at New York City taxi court, even the coffee-stained carpet seems to sweat. Zeraye Gebreyesus sits slumped in a plastic chair watching a fly as he awaits trial. He's innocent, he'll tell you. They've got the wrong guy.

The taxi driver's alleged crime: threatening and yelling at a woman in front of a nail salon on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and swerving his yellow Ford Crown Victoria across several lanes in a wild bid to mow her over. For that he could be fined more than $1,000 and lose his license.

As his case approaches, Cynthia Fisher, Mr. Gebreyesus's attorney, pulls him into her "office," a shadowy corner by the elevator, and comes tearing at him like teeth on a chainsaw. "You listen and you listen good," she growls while her belt-mounted cellphone and beeper vibrate at the same time. "I know what I'm doing, and I'm not about to let this broad win. Don't talk too much. Don't fidget. Be polite to the judge." And, she says, shoving her wide-eyed client into the gray hallway, "Wipe that nervous look off your face."

The 40-year-old Eritrean immigrant is right to be nervous; the odds are against him. At taxi court, a little-known peculiarity of New York's intricate taxi-regulation system, passengers and the city's 38,000 cab drivers square off in front of an administrative law judge over just about every grievance imaginable: pretending not to know where Brooklyn is, purposely hitting potholes, driving off while grandma was half-in and half-out of the car.

Nearly 90% of the time, cabbies lose. Judges say the passengers who present themselves here have already gone through so much -- they have to call a hotline, request an application, wait up to two months for processing, obtain affidavits from any witnesses, and then take time off from their jobs to testify at the hearing -- that they're probably telling the truth. They definitely are angry.

It's no surprise that hacks hate taxi court, and they lose a half day's work or more. "There are not words strong enough to describe that place," says Barry Homidou, who has driven a cab for seven years, "although 'Hole to Hell' is pretty stinking close." Grouses driver Amarjit Singh, accused of refusing to drive a man to a dicey area of the Bronx: "I got a fairer trial in Bangladesh."

Drivers complain they get hauled into court by mistake, and some may have a case: There are more than 3,000 licensed cabbies in New York whose last name is Singh, and court officials privately concede it's easy for agitated passengers to memorize the wrong medallion number.

Moreover, drivers fight a class and culture gap when they arrive for their hearing. Several of the 52 judges, for instance, say it's difficult to understand drivers' foreign accents. When driver Herminio Zerpa tries to explain to Judge Alex Sherman why he didn't pick up a man carting four boxes of photographic equipment, the 88-year-old judge, a retired attorney, cups his hand to his ear and squints. "Did you catch every word of what he was saying?" he asks after finding Mr. Zerpa guilty and fining him $350. "Because I didn't."

Baffled drivers -- 98% of them immigrants, according to industry estimates -- hire taxi lawyers such as Ms. Fisher to help them navigate the system. A lifelong New Yorker with the accent to prove it, Ms. Fisher is busier than ever these days. As part of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's campaign to rid the Big Apple of its famously gruff cabbies, the passenger-complaint process has been streamlined and the little court is handling more cases per week than anytime in its obscure 30-year existence, about 125 a week. Among the improvements: cutting the time complainants have to wait on the day of their hearing to less than one hour from three and moving to a remodeled municipal building near Wall Street from a litter-strewn space near Times Square that occasionally doubled as a surveillance point for drug-enforcement agents.

"It's a night and day difference," boasts Peter Mazer, Taxi & Limousine Commission deputy general counsel, dismissing the notion that cabbies can't get a fair shake. "We treat our drivers fairly and respectfully," he says.

Allan J. Fromberg, a TLC spokesman, says "mistakes are rare" and notes that the court has served as a model for other cities. Indeed, officials in both Washington, D.C., and San Francisco are working to reign in rogue taxi drivers and looking to New York for guidance. "New York's method is a little loony," says Lee Williams, Washington Taxicab Commission chairman. "But it gets results."

Happy Riders

Although the streamlined court system draws raves from passengers -- "They bent over backwards for me, and I loved it," says Eran Offek, the photographer who hauled Mr. Zerpa to court -- drivers are increasingly unhappy. Cabbies point to the waiting room as an example of what they call the court's two-tiered class system. While plaintiffs are ushered into an inner waiting room and treated to padded furniture and magazines, drivers sit elbow-to-elbow on plastic chairs under the supervision of court officers. The separate waiting areas were constructed, a bailiff explained, to reduce "fistfights, shouting and spitting."

(Chief Justice Lisa Rana "strongly disagrees" that cabbies are treated unfairly and says the more comfortable plaintiff waiting room is necessary to "accommodate passengers that may have had a particularly bad experience.")

The 43-year-old Ms. Fisher, who also has a criminal practice, charges $200 for this sort of case. She operates out of the drivers' waiting room with a black Coach briefcase as a filing cabinet. Typically, she doesn't meet her clients or see copies of complaints until the day of the hearing. Even then, she often has to fight with court administrators -- whom she calls "the Gestapo" -- to see what charges her clients face. On the day of Mr. Gebreyesus's 10 a.m. hearing, for instance, Ms. Fisher starts nagging for a copy of the complaint at 9:40. Forty-five minutes later, she's still waiting. "This really burns my butt," she fumes. "Is it any wonder drivers lose 99.9% of these cases?" In the end, Mr. Gebreyesus's case is rescheduled after the plaintiff fails to show.

Although taxi attorneys hardly ever win, drivers say hiring one is their only chance of escaping fines -- which range from $50 to $250 for failing to report left-behind property to $350 to $1,000 for attempting to distract a seeing-eye dog. The most common complaint is refusing a fare. The Taxi & Limousine Commission, which also hears cases brought by the police, has an annual budget of $22.7 million. It collected $7.3 million in fines in 2000.

Searching for Cracks

Drivers who don't hire attorneys sometimes look to other sources for guidance. Industry newsletter Taxi Talk, for example, published an article several years ago called "Beating the Rap at Taxi Court," advising drivers to, among other things, "wear something appropriate" and "hunt for procedure violations." Says editor Michael Higgins: "We tried to find the court's cracks. We didn't get very far. That place can be a little secretive."

A little? The TLC started allowing outsiders to watch hearings just last year after a student journalist sued the city, and access to court records is restricted. "What's an open-records law?" asks Mr. Fromberg, the spokesman. "I've never even heard of that."

Ms. Fisher says she's tired of fighting the system -- and losing -- but trudges on for the rare case she wins. Recently, a months-long losing streak ended when she cleared driver Boumafou Maiga of charges that he ignored a hail outside the Marriott Marquis hotel in Times Square. It was a surprise victory: Mr. Maiga almost botched his case by rattling on nervously about whether he saw the family trying to flag him down, prompting Judge Mary-Ann Maloney to peer at him with one eyebrow arched. Even so, Ms. Maloney eventually bought Ms. Fisher's argument that a hotel doorman was at fault and dismissed the case.

"I told you I would take care of you," Ms. Fisher tells Mr. Maiga with a wink. "Now, get out of here, you rascal."