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IPFS News Link • Courtroom and Trials

Federal Judge: No, Taxis Don't Have a Right to a Monopoly

• fee.org by Ilya Shapiro

The opinions—both penned by Judge Richard Posner—are perhaps the courts' strongest rebuke yet of taxi cartels' desperate attempts to stay relevant in an Uber world, with Posner describing their claims as having "no merit" and "border[ing] on the absurd." It's nice to know that—in the Seventh Circuit at least—losing your monopolistic cartel due to technological disruption is not considered to be a constitutional violation.

A Right to Be Free from Competition?

In one case, Illinois Transportation Trade Association v. City of Chicago, incumbent taxi companies sued Chicago for allowing app-based ridesharing companies such as Uber and Lyft to operate, asserting that the city's decision to allow such companies to enter the market without being subject to the same regulations covering traditional taxis constituted an unconstitutional taking of their property without just compensation (and also somehow violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause).


thelibertyadvisor.com/declare