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Challenging Denver's Taxicab Monopoly
Jones v. Temmer
IJ Breaks Up Denver’s 50-Year-Old Taxi Monopoly
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Institute for Justice President Chip Mellor poses alongside a Freedom Cab with IJ clients Ani Ebong, Girma Molalegne and Leroy Jones.
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On August 1, 1995, three minority entrepreneurs launched Freedom Cabs, Denver’s first new taxi cab company in 50 years. For the five decades prior to that day, the Colorado Public Utilities Commission refused to license any new cab company, citing laws and regulations that effectively denied entry to the market and firmly entrenched a three-company oligopoly. But the Institute for Justice’s work in the court of law and in the court of public opinion changed that.
Representing minority taxi entrepreneurs and Reverend Oscar Tillman, who was the Legal Redress Chairman of the Denver NAACP, the Institute for Justice challenged those laws in 1993 as an unconstitutional infringement of economic liberty, the right of individuals to earn an honest living without arbitrary government interference. In August 1993 the U.S. District Court in Colorado upheld the laws, ruling against IJ and its clients.
The Institute appealed to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but in the meantime, the lawsuit drew the interest of the Colorado legislature, where IJ attorneys and clients testified in favor of opening Denver’s taxicab market to new entrants. In June 1994, the governor of Colorado signed legislation officially opening up the market and paving the way for the aptly named Freedom Cabs to open for business. IJ’s successful efforts promoting the plight of Denver cab entrepreneurs encouraged both Cincinnati and Indianapolis to open their cab markets to greater competition.
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