Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub Sue New York City Over Legislation on Commission Caps (reuters.com) 35
Food-delivery companies DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats have sued New York City over a legislation to license food-delivery apps and to permanently cap commissions they can charge restaurants. From a report: The three food-delivery companies filed a lawsuit in federal court in New York late on Thursday. The companies are seeking an injunction that would prevent New York from enforcing the fee-cap ordinance adopted last month, as well as unspecified monetary damages and a jury trial. The New York City Council approved in August a legislation which limits the amount that food-delivery companies can charge restaurants to use their platforms and requires them to obtain operating licenses that are valid for two years. read more "Those permanent price controls will harm not only Plaintiffs, but also the revitalization of the very local restaurants that the City claims to serve," the companies said in the lawsuit filed on Thursday. The suit argues that the legislation is unconstitutional because "it interferes with freely negotiated contracts between platforms and restaurants by changing and dictating the economic terms on which a dynamic industry operates."
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Erm, (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly, pretty sure this falls squarely in the zone of what municipal governments can regulate.
If a "disrupter" business is suing its generally a step in the right direction.
1st, 5th, 14th (but not). Same as right to abortio (Score:2, Interesting)
SCOTUS has at various times found a right to contract under the first amendment right to assembly (which SCOTUS constructed from freedom of speech), and from due process under the fifth and fourteenth amendments. The court has been slowly backing away from position over the decades.
There is a general sense of a general freedom to do one wishes unless there is a) a sufficient government interest and b) a specific power greater to the government to bar your activity. This idea is expressed in the Declaration
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SCOTUS has at various times found a right to contract under the first amendment right to assembly (which SCOTUS constructed from freedom of speech)
wat?
The right to assemble is literally right there.
* Free association, not assembly. Oops (Score:2)
I meant to say right of free association.
Thanks for correcting that.
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The USA Constitution
The State of New York Constitution
Furthermore, some states have state-granted Charters which serve as municipal constitutions
And charters developed by said city.
Please don't assume that all knowledge is only within you!
If you're married, your spouse (and particularly your wife) will confirm your lack of knowledge.
And, Yes, I know this is
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10th
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If it's interstate commerce, then they might have a point. That's (possibly) only for the US government. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know if a contract between entities in different states is interstate (GrubHub and the restaurant)...or if the customer vs. restaurant would have to be in separate states for that.
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/p... [umkc.edu]
https://www.law.cornell.edu/we... [cornell.edu]
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Do Uber Eats delivery workers get paid waiting time? IE if they stand around at a restaurant for an hour waiting, do they get paid for their time? If so, does Uber get paid more? If Uber can't charge for that time and they don't pay the worker for their time, will they be breaking labour laws in New York?
I don't know or like law but there could be an argument here that this new law conflicts with an old law.
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The due process if the Fourteenth Amendment is generally where contract protection comes from. It's been the basis of those protections since late 1800's.
Freely Negotiated Contracts (Score:5, Informative)
Freely negotiated contracts? Really?
Grubhub’s new growth hack is listing restaurants that didn’t agree to be listed [theverge.com]
Grubhub is using thousands of fake websites to upcharge commission fees from real businesses [theverge.com]
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What really amazes me is that people are so eager to pay such high prices for food delivery. I admit I've used these services a couple times over the past 18 months, but personally I find the fees a little ridiculous for all but special occasions (birthdays) where we ordered a lot of food. I've heard stories about kids using these services to get lunch at school. I just can't believe people would be so willing to pay the high fees for such a service.
I mostly just order from restaurants that do their own de
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What really amazes me is that people are so eager to pay such high prices for food delivery.
When I am working and don't want to stop to go pick up food these services are extremely valuable. It costs me $7 to get food delivered, or I can stop working for 30-45 minutes and go get it which costs me far more. They have their place.
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Last week I tried to use Uber's $10 off $20 order. The total, with no rush delivery, and skipping the tip came out to $21.75 for two meals. Instead we rode our bikes to the restaurant and ordered take out, total cost was $21.50. No $10 off coupon.
I don't quite understand all the various fees they charge, and on top of that they also inflate the individual items. Each of the meals, which cost $10.75, are listed as $13.25 on the Uber Eats website, yet they still charge a service fee, a city surcharge fee, del
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I just looked at my last order receipt. A local sandwich shop.
Food $12.27
Fee $1.84
Tip $4.50
Not sure why it would be so much more in your area.
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What often happens is that Uber charges a percentage of that $12.27 to the restaurant. So restaurants will often charge higher prices for the food items when ordered through Uber Eats. So a sandwich that might only cost $8 if you walked in would cost $12 if you ordered it through the app.
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OK. If Grubhub is picking up from a restaurant that doesn’t have an agreement with them, then the commission the restaurant pays is 0%. How is that unfair?
NYC has rent controls (Score:2)
So, the question of "interfering with freely negotiated contracts" has been settled in favor of the city, for decades now.
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3rd party food distribution?
I'm sure NYC will get right on Apple's system for 3rd party app distribution any day now.
City council members go into politics to get in the way, to be paid to get back out of the way. Or be paid to get in the way, as with protecting connected cronies.
This is the way of humanity and all human history and 90% of its misery.
Laughed out of court. (Score:3)
Contracts are literally only valid if they don't run afoul of the law. There is nothing that says laws can't make your business less or even completely unprofitable.
This is an act of desperation.
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EULA (Score:2)
This is crazy. First they complain the people are buying food, paying real money for product, and delivering it to people with the stores consent. Now the ones that choose to use the platform donâ(TM)t want to pay. I donâ(TM)t get free food, I tip drivers, so why donâ(TM)t y
when known thieves (Score:3)
Municipality can protect its small businesses (Score:5, Insightful)
Municipalities can ban, shadow URL, deceptive URLs, phone numbers promoted by the platforms using SEO etc. It can also demand delivery companies disclose the real customer's id and contact. And demand disclosure about how the order ended up with the delivery companies. Platforms should not be able to capture a direct order to the restaurant .
Price Controls Help Restaurants (Score:5, Interesting)
"Those permanent price controls will harm not only Plaintiffs, but also the revitalization of the very local restaurants that the City claims to serve," the companies said in the lawsuit filed on Thursday.
If a restaurant were to analyze their cost [cnet.com] of doing business with these food delivery services [washingtonpost.com], they'd realize that they're breaking even [newyorker.com] or more likely losing money [npr.org] on each order.
And if a restaurant uses multiple delivery services, they'll get charged higher commissions [laist.com] than if the restaurant signed an exclusive agreement with one delivery app company.
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So what you are saying is the restaurants do a poor job of analyzing the contracts and they shouldn't have signed because it wasn't to their benefit?
What I'm saying is these food delivery services are screwing over restaurants whether they partner up with them or not [thetakeout.com].
Emphasis mine:
Specifically, the suit alleges that Grubhub has for years been billing restaurants for phone calls routed through the app, whether or not the call resulted in an actual order. Grubhub says it only charges restaurants a commission when an order is placed, but the Post spoke to multiple owners who say they’ve been charged thousands of dollars for calls that weren’t o
Consider the source (Score:1)
De Blasio? (Score:2)
Simple solution (Score:3)
Every one of these food delivery services should be required to provide a receipt which breaks out the exact costs.
Line 1 - cost of meal from the restaurant
Line 2 - delivery charge
Line 3 - commission charge
Line 4 - miscellaneous fee just because
Line 5 - air quality charge
Line 6 - disruptor fee
Line 7 - wear and tear fee (for use of drivers' personal vehicle)
Line 8 - fuel/electricity fee
Line 9 - state licensing fee
Line 10 - taxes on all the above
Line 11 - total charge
If these companies balk because they claim it is too difficult to do, ask why it is in grocery stores or CVS have no problem breaking out a detailed receipt. Even the restaurant itself provides a detailed break out of the food charges so if they can do it, so can these companies.
Hmmmm (Score:1)
However, they have a point. Any business should be allowed to charge whatever fees it wants as long as it is not a monopoly and does not collude with its competitors in order to keep fees high.
Don't want to pay $20+ to get your pizza delivered to your door? Get off your lazy ass and go walk the three blo