[Another victory for justice by the Globe Spotlight team. Now if they could just go after Goldman Sachs and get a few hundred billion back for all of us, on interest on the free loans, on fraudulent foreclosures, etc.] bostonglobe/metro/2013/06/20/judge-freezes-assets-city-taxi-king/R2DZokAcfngOHmFvhPVLpL/story.html A state judge froze the assets of Boston’s largest taxi fleet owner Thursday, ruling that cabdrivers have a “reasonable likelihood” of winning a class-action lawsuit that accuses Edward J. Tutunjian and smaller fleet owners of wrongly treating cabbies as independent contractors instead of as employees, costing drivers hundreds of millions in unpaid wages. The ruling, which could foreshadow a transformation of the city’s billion-dollar taxi industry, came after Suffolk Superior Court Judge Linda E. Giles said at a hearing Tuesday that the court may well decide the suit for the drivers on summary judgment, making a trial unnecessary. The suit asks the court to designate as a class thousands of drivers who have paid fees of about $100 a shift to lease cabs from three fleet owners since March 2006. Given the enormous potential damages at stake, Giles granted a motion to freeze the assets of Tutunjian, the king of Boston’s cab industry and the focus of a recent Spotlight Team series on the exploitation of drivers by fleet owners. Tutunjian owns Boston Cab, by far the largest fleet in Boston. His corporations own 372 taxi medallions — one in five of the city’s 1,825 — each with a market value of about $600,000. His business empire is worth about a quarter-billion dollars and includes parking lots and garages near Fenway Park, Back Bay apartment buildings, a business making loans at high interest rates to aspiring taxi owners, and several vineyards in Chile. Related Spotlight report: Driven to the Edge 6/1: IRS agents raid Boston Cab headquarters 4/1: Taxi titan’s rise began with one cab Shannon Liss-Riordan, the Boston lawyer representing four cabdrivers named in the suit, said the order will not interfere with Tutunjian’s businesses but will prevent him from selling or transferring his assets pending the outcome of the case. “We want the cabdrivers to keep working, but we don’t want to face the risk of the assets being dissipated while we proceed with this case,’’ she said. Liss-Riordan said she expects the judge to rule on motions seeking summary judgment and certification of a class within a year.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Jun 2013 06:18:27 +0000
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