November 3, 2022
Law360 reported on Schlam Stone & Dolan LLP’s permissive appeal to the Second Circuit on behalf of its client, the New York Black Car Operators’ Injury Compensation Fund, of Southern District of New York District Judge Philip Halpern’s decision that the Black Car Fund improperly collected a 2.5% surcharge on noncash tips to black car and for-hire drivers in New York. After Judge Halpern certified the question for interlocutory appeal, the Second Circuit accepted the permissive appeal and permitted the parties to submit supplemental briefing supporting their positions. In the Black Car Fund’s supplemental filing, Schlam Stone & Dolan attorneys Seth D. Allen and Richard H. Dolan argued that “plaintiff asks this court to ignore the well-settled law requiring a court to apply a statutory definition of the term 'covered service' and instead substitute a different meaning of the court's own invention. The error by the district court was accepting plaintiff's invitation by doing precisely that."
In the article, Seth Allen is quoted, “[w]e are encouraged that the Second Circuit accepted our permissive appeal of Judge Halpern's decision, and we were pleased to have the opportunity to explain why, as a matter of law, the Black Car Fund was entitled to apply its surcharge on passengers’ noncash gratuities.”
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