Request By:
Mr. Paul V. Guagliardo
Assistant Director of Law
City of Louisville
City Hall
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; Carl Miller, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an opinion of the Attorney General on several questions pertaining to taxicab travel in the City of Louisville by taxicabs whose operation is not licensed by the City of Louisville. In effect, you have asked us to interpret state laws and regulations pertaining to taxicabs as they affect Ordinance No. 115 recently enacted by the City of Louisville which amended CGO 737.03 to read as follows:
"(a) No person shall operate a taxicab for hire upon the streets of the City of Louisville, and no person who owns or controls a taxicab shall permit it to be so driven and no taxicab licensed pursuant to this Chapter shall be so driven at any time for hire, unless the driver of such taxicab shall have first obtained and shall then have in force a taxicab driver's permit issued under the provisions of this Chapter.
"(b) No person shall operate or permit a taxicab owned or controlled by such person to be operated as a vehicle for hire upon the streets of the City of Louisville unless such taxicab has been licensed as defined in CGO 737.01(e).
(c) The provisions of subsections (a) and (b) of this Section shall not apply to any taxicab, or owner, operator or driver thereof, when such taxicab is being used for, or such owner or operator thereof is engaged in, the transportation for hire of passengers from a point outside the City of Louisville to a point within the corporate limits of the City of Louisville; provided, however, that said taxicab shall not be used nor shall the owners or operators thereof be authorized to pick up passengers within the City of Louisville unless said taxicab, owners or operators thereof are qualified to and do apply for and receive the permits and license required by this Chapter."
You also state that CGO 737.01(3) defines "licensed" as follows:
"'Licensed' means to have a current Sinking Fund License issued pursuant to CGO 727.20 and to have been inspected and received a current inspection sticker as provided in this Chapter."
Since we believe that part of Ordinance CGO 737.03 is in conflict with state law and regulations, we find it first necessary to define the terms to be used in this opinion:
1) A taxicab is a "carrier" or "motor carrier" and also a "common carrier" under the definitions found in KRS 281.011. As such a taxicab operator must obtain a certificate from the Department of Transportation for the operation of a given number of motor vehicles transporting passengers for hire, the principal operation of which is confined to the corporate limits and its suburban area. KRS 281.014 and KRS 281.615.
"Operation" as used in this opinion refers to the situs of the taxicab business as stated in the certificate; it does not mean the territory over which a particular taxicab may occasionally travel. We will use the term "taxicab operator" to refer to the person, partnership or corporation obtaining the taxicab certificate.
KRS 281.011(6) provides:
"The term 'driver' or 'chauffeur' means the person physically operating the motor vehicle."
The above definition of terms is consistent with 601 KRS 1.115 § 2 which reads as follows:
"Taxicab operations. All taxicab certificates will be issued to operate at a designated town or city, and all operations must be at or from such designated town or city. An operator who has secured a certificate to operate at a designated town or city will not be permitted to change the place of operations. Operations from any city or town other than designated in the certificate shall constitute a cause for suspension or cancellation of the certificate. "
LOUISVILLE LICENSING OF TAXICAB DRIVERS WHOSE OPERATION IS FROM OUTSIDE THE CITY.
It is our opinion that Louisville does not have the authority to license taxicab drivers whose base of operation is outside of the City of Louisville to pick up passengers within the City of Louisville. Inasmuch as CGO 737.03(c) purports to authorize such licensing we believe it is in conflict with the statutes and regulations and therefore void to that extent.
We will now deal with your specific questions in the light of the fact situations you state.
"1. FACTS A person holds a taxicab certificate issued by the Commonwealth authorizing operation in an unincorporated portion of Jefferson County. The certificate does not specifically authorize operations within the City of Louisville or its suburban area."
"QUESTION 1. Does said taxicab certificate, merely by its reference to Jefferson County, authorize the taxicab in question to conduct its operations within the City of Louisville?"
ANSWER. No. 601 KAR 1:115 § 2 provides:
"All taxicab certificates will be issued to operate as a designated town or city, and all operations must be at or from such designated town or city."
"QUESTION 2. If the answer to question #1 is no, does the certificate authorize the taxicab to respond to a call from a prospective passenger within the corporate limits of the City of Louisville in order to transport the passenger to a designation elsewhere within the corporate limits of the City?"
ANSWER. No. A taxicab operation outside of the City of Louisville cannot pick up a passenger within the City of Louisville to transport elsewhere within the corporate limits. A driver can only transport passengers from without into the City of Louisville and leave them or return them outside of the City.
"QUESTION 3. Does the taxicab certificate authorize the taxicab to respond to a call from a prospective passenger within the corporate limits of Louisville in order to transport the passenger to a destination outside the corporate limits of the City of Louisville?"
ANSWER. No.
"2. FACTS: A taxicab in Frankfort, Kentucky (or any other city outside Jefferson County) receives a call from a prospective passenger within the corporate limits of the City of Louisville requesting that taxi to come to Louisville to pick the passenger up and deliver him to a destination in Frankfort (or otherwise outside the corporate limits of the City of Louisville)."
"QUESTION Is that taxicab, certified by the state to operate within Frankfort, authorized to respond to the call from Louisville?"
Answer. No.
In arriving at the positions stated herein we have been influenced by the case of
Taxi, Inc. v. Cincinnati, 162 Ohio St. 163 (1954). That case involved a ordinance of the City of Cincinnati which reads as follows:
"No person, firm or corporation or any owner, agent, employee or driver shall operate or permit to be operated a vehicle as a public vehicle, or to proffer the services of such a vehicle as a vehicle by solicitation by voice, sign, public announcement, or otherwise, unless the proper license has been issued to the owner thereof and is in force. . . . The operator of a public vehicle duly licensed by some other proper governmental authority, but having no Cincinnati license, the place of business or the owner or operator (if not the owner) of which is not in the City of Cincinnati, may transport passengers into Cincinnati by means of such public vehicles, but may not accept, or offer to accept any passengers, for compensation, or accept any business whatsoever, within the limits of the City of Cincinnati."
We believe that Louisville Ordinance CGO 737.03 has the same effect as the Cincinnati Ordinance; that Louisville cannot make an exception to its general law by issuing licenses to drivers who are working for taxicab operators located elsewhere. This opinion is consistent with OAG 79-11 wherein we opined that Louisville should not license drivers of taxicabs operating from without the state. We now extend the logic of that opinion to conclude that Louisville cannot license drivers working from an operation without the City of Louisville. In other words, the operation and the driver must both be licensed in the City of Louisville or neither need be.