amny.com42%
Federal judge bars NYC law protecting rideshare drivers from wrongful deactivation 56%
By Max Parrott34%
7/23/2026, 8:30:15 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Appeal to Emotion, and Availability Heuristic, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 17.4% saturation with 103 hits. Analysis detected 666 faulty-reasoning hits from 592 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 53.6% and a BS Rank of 56% (9,374 of 21,188 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 55.80% of the article peer group.
Rideshare companies notched a win against city enforcers this week when a federal judge blocked a City Council law that prevented Uber and Lyft from abruptly deactivating drivers, ruling it unconstitutional.
U.S.
District Court Judge Gregory Woods issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday that stops the city from starting its July 28 scheduled implementation of Local Law 52, which would protect around 87,000 for-hire vehicle drivers from being immediately deactivated, except in cases of egregious misconduct.
The New York City Council passed the law in December in order to prevent the potential economic damages that sudden deactivations pose for rideshare drivers — 91% of whom are immigrants and a majority of whom are paying off their vehicles, according to data cited in court papers.
In his decision, Woods wrote that the balance of the equities and the public interest is in Uber’s favor.
Part of his reasoning was based on the assessment that only a small group of drivers are affected by wrongful deactivations.
“The record documents hardships that wrongful deactivation imposes on drivers but does not estimate how many deactivations were wrongful,” Woods wrote.
“The record does not establish that the group likely to require its protections is large in the context of the public served by the City Council.”
The ruling means that the city will be preliminarily blocked from enforcing the rule as the lawsuit moves forward.
Wood concluded that Uber is likely to prevail in its argument that Local Law 52 does not further a significant and legitimate public purpose and that it impedes rideshare companies’ constitutional contractual rights.
Queens City Council Member Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens), the law’s sponsor, said that he strongly disagreed with the decision and would continue to fight for due process for app-based drivers.
“We are evaluating this latest ruling and considering next steps to ensure these protections are upheld,” Krishnan wrote.
The New York Taxi Workers Alliance also slammed Woods' decision, criticizing his reasoning that rideshare drivers are a “narrow class.”
“It's an extreme, pro-corporation position that would be a danger to the rights of every working person if it were allowed to stand,” wrote NYTWA executive director Bhairavi Desai.
“The decision is a punch in the gut to New York City workers and a slap in the face of democracy, endangering the city's ability to enact any workforce-specific regulations.”
Uber filed its complaint against the city in June, asserting that Local Law 52 violates the Contracts Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the First Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution.
Woods found that Uber and Lyft were likely to succeed in their case that the regulation undermines their contracts with drivers and their authority to investigate “deceptive, fraudulent, unsafe, illegal, harmful” conduct.
The judge also raised concerns that the bill would impede the companies’ ability to “police the safety of their platforms and their passengers.”
Though the bill would still allow Uber and Lyft to deactivate drivers who pose a danger to passengers, Woods objected to the strict five-day timeline requiring the companies to detail the reasons for a temporary deactivation while a complaint is being reviewed.
If Uber or Lyft failed to provide proper documentation for a driver accused of sexual assault, Woods wrote, then the driver could be later reinstated to the platform because of a “procedural defect.”
He concluded that the risks to the rideshare companies and the general public outweighed the risks to the city or what he asserted to be “a very small but undetermined number of drivers.”
Analysis
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