NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) Had the Authority to Enter a 10-Year Exclusive Agreement with Nissan for the Production of the “Taxi of Tomorrow (T o T),” NYC’s Official Taxicab

The Court of Appeals determined the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) did not exceed the authority granted the commission by the City Council when it entered a 10-year exclusive agreement with Nissan to provide the “Taxi of Tomorrow (T o T),” New York City’s official taxicab:

A legislature may enact a general statutory provision and delegate power to an agency to fill in the details, as long as reasonable safeguards and guidelines are provided to the agency (see Boreali v Axelrod, 71 NY2d 1, 10 [1987]). As a creation of a legislative body, the TLC possesses the powers expressly conferred by the City Council, as well as those “required by necessary implication” … . “[A]n agency can adopt regulations that go beyond the text of [its enabling] legislation, provided they are not inconsistent with the statutory language or its underlying purposes” … . The question before us is whether the authority granted to the TLC by the City Council included the power to enact the ToT rules, or whether the agency has exceeded its authority and acted in a manner not contemplated by the legislative body … .  * * *

The City Council granted the TLC extremely broad authority to enact rules, including the ToT rules. The TLC was created with the stated purposes of “continuance, further development and improvement of taxi and limousine service in the city of New York” (NY City Charter § 2300). The City Charter provides that the TLC is authorized, “consonant with the promotion and protection of the public comfort and convenience[,] to adopt and establish an overall public transportation policy governing taxi . . . services as it relates to the overall public transportation network of the city; to establish . . . standards for equipment safety and design; . . . and to set standards and criteria for the licensing of vehicles” used in taxi service (NY City Charter § 2300 [emphasis added]). * * *

In granting the TLC this broad authority, the City Charter includes guidelines for the TLC to consider, such as “safety, and design, comfort, convenience, noise and air pollution control and efficiency in the operation of vehicles” (NY City Charter § 2303 [b] [6]). Although the TLC has generally applied the “specs method” when promulgating rules about the design of taxis, it points to a major shortcoming of that method — the situation where no available model meets the specs in the rules as, for example, when Ford discontinued the Crown Victoria … . The TLC determined that “[t]he most obvious alternative to vehicle specifications [is the] competitive selection of taxicab vehicle models,” as embodied in the ToT project … . This new method was intended to be a more efficient way to reach the same result and, in our view, falls within the broad authority granted to the TLC. Greater N.Y. Taxi Assn. v New York City Taxi & Limousine Commn., 2015 NY Slip Op 05514, CtApp 6-25-15