Judge: Cherry Creek mall taxi deal did not violate state regulations
Metro Taxi and Denver Yellow Cab did not violate state regulations by entering into a now-terminated exclusive agreement to use the taxi stand at Denver's Cherry Creek Shopping Center, a judge has ruled.
Administrative Law Judge Paul Gomez wrote in a decision mailed Wednesday that the complaint filed by Union Taxi Cooperative and Freedom Cabs Inc. is moot because the agreement that the companies called anti-competitive is no longer in place.
But even if it still were in place, Gomez wrote further in a 21-page decision, neither cab company can cite that it suffered any sort of direct financial injury because of the agreement.
The two Denver cab companies that filed the complaint now have 20 days to file exceptions to the decision. If they do not, the decision will go to the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) for expected approval.
Neither returned phone calls seeking comment.
Doug Friednash, attorney for Yellow Cab, cheered the ruling, saying that it shows that taxi companies are allowed to work out exclusive arrangements with private properties in Colorado.
“I think the case, quite frankly, was groundless to begin with,” said Friednash, counsel with Greenberg Traurig law firm of Denver. “It was a strong signal that these kinds of arrangements, even if exclusive, are legal.”
The heavily visited Cherry Creek mall signed an agreement with Metro Taxi and Yellow Cab last fall allowing the companies exclusive access to the facility’s designated taxi stand, though not banning other cab companies from picking up or dropping off customers elsewhere at the mall. On Dec. 9, Union and Freedom filed separate complaints with the PUC charging that the agreements signed by the two companies were anti-competitive practices that would undermine state policy of increasing competition in the Denver taxi market.
Mall officials withdrew the exclusive agreement the day after the complaints were filed and replaced it with one in which all cab companies could pay to be allowed to pick people up at the taxi stand. Both companies then amended their complaints to argue that the new agreement also violated PUC law, with Union writing that contracts affecting fares, charges or classifications are unjust, discriminatory and preferential.
Freedom filed the complaint despite the fact that it was negotiating with the Cherry Creek mall to enter into such a “pay-for-play” agreement, Gomez noted. He wrote that any injury to either company from the proposed agreement, which is not in place yet, was “speculative and remote.”
“Freedom can not have it both ways,” Gomez wrote in his decision. “It may not argue that such an agreement causes it injury on the one hand, while negotiating the very agreement at issue on the other hand.”
While Gomez dismissed the complaint from Union and Freedom, he declined to award attorney’s fees to the prevailing companies, as Metro Taxi had requested.
Filed under: legal by Pascal