Legal Blog of Attorney Lawrence B. Saftler

Lawsuit Against Car Services – Not So Fast – It Depends on Where You Sue

By lsaftler on September 21, 2011

One of the interesting facets of pacticing and knowing the law of personal injury is knowing where to bring your lawsuit. This is important for every case, but it can make the difference of winning or losing outright when it comes to suing a car service.
Car service or the “black car” service industry are the black limos you call for your ride to the airport or for whatever purpose you wish when you want private transportation service. The names of the companies range from companies like Carmel Car Service, 777-7777, Farrel Limousine, New York Car and Limo Service and numerous others.

 What the unknowing passenger doesn’t know when they get into a limo is that if that driver has an accident, while you may think the Car Service you hired to transport you would be responsible, don’t count on it.  That depends on where you brought you lawsuit, and not where you had your accident, oddly.
There was a time when you could not hold a car service responsible anywhere because the car service claimed they were merely a dispatching service, with no control over their independent drivers. My law firm changed that , but only in the First Department, which comprises Manhattan and the Bronx. See Devlin v City of New York, 254 AD2d 16. We argued that the car service held themselves out as the drivers’ employers, amongst other things and the Appellate Division agreed, but the law that was made is applicable only in the First Department. There is a split in the departments.  In the Second Department, meaning Queens, Brooklyn, Nassau, Westcheter, Suffolk and Staten Island, the law is the opposite, meaning they still ascribe to the view that these companies are dispatching services with no control over their drivers and therefore are not responsible.

 This split in the departments was highlighted in a case reported in the September 21, 2011 New York Law Journal out of the Second Department named Barak v Chen and Carmel Car Service, where the Appellate Division went so far as to state, “we decline the plaintiff’s invitation to adopt the reasoning of the Appellate Division, First Department in Devlin v City of New York, that an additional factor that should be considered in regard to whether vicarious liability is appropriate is whether [the defendant car service] held itself out to the public as being the employer of its drivers”. To me, this decision is an invitation to let the highest court in the state, the Court of Appeals, reconcile this difference in law between the Departments.

 It is just not right that you can’t get the same justice in Queens or Brooklyn that you can in the Bronx or Manhattan. For those of you who get into car accidents as passengers in car services,  these services should be held accountable for what they hold themselves out to be – the employers of “their drivers”.  Don’t be shut out of the courthouse, bring your lawsuit in Manhattan or the Bronx against any black car accident case.

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