Yellow Cab Industry Joins City Against For-Hire Vehicle Operators’ Suit

Richard Perry/The New York Times The availability of services like Uber, whose smartphone app can be used to hail for-hire livery drivers, is the subject of litigation in New York City.

A powerful group of yellow taxi fleet owners has moved to join the city’s defense against a lawsuit seeking to bar so-called e-hailing smartphone apps from yellow cabs.

The group, the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, filed as an intervenor in the suit in State Supreme Court on Tuesday, meaning the organization is seeking to become involved in the case â€" even though the yellow taxi industry is not named as a defendantâ€" because the outcome will directly influence its business model.

This month, for-hire vehicle operators sued the city, contending a pilot e-hailing program violates a ban on prearranged rides in yellow taxis.

The Board of Trade’s move places the yellow taxi industry in an unusual position: as an ally of the Bloomberg administration, which it has often vociferously opposed in recent years, particularly over plans to expand street-hail service for livery cabs in boroughs outside of Manhattan.

On the subject of hailing apps, though, their interests seem to overlap. In December, the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission voted to authorize a pilot program to allow passengers and available drivers to find each other using the apps.

The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade said in a statement on Tuesday that “e-hails that are done im! mediately are street hails.” Black and livery cars have themselves used hailing apps in recent years.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, two of the plaintiffs, the Livery Roundtable and the Black Car Assistance Corporation, seemed to brush off the yellow taxi industry’s move, focusing instead on the city government. “Our dispute is not with the taxis,” the groups said. “We are in court because the Taxi and Limousine Commission acted illegally, ignored existing rules, laws and regulations.”

The for-hire vehicle operators are being represented by Randy M. Mastro, a former deputy mayor for operations under Rudolph W. Giuliani. Mr. Mastro also worked to oppose the city in the all-borough taxi case. Last June, Justice Arthur F. Engoron, of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, blocked the administration’s plan to expand street hail service beyond Manhattan.

The app case was nitially scheduled to go before Justice Engoron as well, but the city has petitioned an administrative judge to have it reassigned.