During the 2015 General Session, the legislature amended certain statutes governing Certificates of Public Necessity and Convenience (“CPNCs”) — also known as taxi medallions — and created new provisions authorizing (and regulating) ride-sharing programs throughout the state. Appellants, taxicab drivers who operate in the City of Atlanta and own CPNCs, filed suit in Fulton County Superior Court claiming that the Act resulted in an unconstitutional taking and inverse condemnation of their CPNCs. The State moved to dismiss, arguing, inter alia, that Appellants had failed to state legally cognizable claims; the trial court agreed and granted the motion. We affirm the judgment of the triаl court.
Prior to May 6, 2015, OCGA § 36-60-25 (a) authorized counties and municipalities to require “the owner or operator of a taxicab or vehicle for hire” to obtain a CPNC to operate “such taxicab or vehicle for hire” within the county or municipality, respectively. (Emphasis supplied.) OCGA § 36-60-25 (a) (2007). Consistent with this аuthorization, the City of Atlanta required CPNCs for taxicabs and “vehicles for hire” operating within the city limits — capping the number of available CPNCs at 1,600 — and the City regulated those taxi medallions with an extensive regulatоry scheme. See Atl. City Ord. § 162-26 et seq. However, in 2015, the GeneralAssembly passed legislation to regulate “transportation for hire” and preempt “the entire field of administration and regulation over ride share network services . . . and taxi services.” See Ga. L. 2015, p. 1262, § 3. In addition to permitting and regulating ride-sharing programs throughout the State, Act 195 (“the Act”) amends OCGA § 36-60-25 (a) to prohibit counties and municipalities from enacting, adopting, or еnforcing any new ordinance requiring taxicabs to procure CPNCs or taxi medallions; the legislature left intact existing regulatory schemes — such as the one enacted by the City of Atlanta — with respect to the regulation of taxicabs, removing any reference to “vehicle for hire”
In July 2015, Appellants filed a complaint claiming that Act 195 resulted in an unconstitutional taking and inverse condemnation.
We begin with the well-settled standard that
[a] motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted should not be sustained unless (1) the allеgations of the complaint disclose with certainty that the claimant would not be entitled to relief under any state of provable facts asserted in support thereof; and (2) the movant establishes that the claimant could not possibly introduce evidence within the framework of the complaint sufficient to warrant a grant of the relief sought. If, within the framework of the complaint, evidence may be intrоduced which will sustain a grant of the relief sought by the claimant, the complaint is sufficient and a motion to dismiss should be denied. In deciding a motion to dismiss, all pleadings are to be construed most favorably to the рarty who filed them, and all doubts regarding such pleadings must be resolved in the filing party’s favor.
(Footnotes omitted.) Anderson v. Flake,
As an initial matter, “ ‘[t]he (s)tate has the authority under its police powers to enact reasonable laws regulating the use and operation of motor vehicles upon the public highways.’ ” (Citation omitted.) Quiller v. Bowman,
Though it may be true that an occupational or business license — once secured — can become a protected рroperty right, see, e.g, Goldrush II v. City of Marietta,
Taxicabs “have been the subject of frequent and intensive regulation in this state,” and the Act “does not take business property for a public use; it merely requires an already rеgulated business to adjust its property to the new law.” State v. Old South Amusements,
Rarеly, perhaps, does any new law which acts with vigor upon commerce, local or general, fail to impair the value of more or less property Surely the damage clause in our . . . constitution was not intended to make the State or the legislature an insurer against all shrinkage of values that might result from the passage of laws intended for the public good. Can it be seriously thought that the State must literally pay its way to the establishment of a sound and wholesome system of internal police and public order?
Menken v. City of Atlanta,
Accordingly, because Appellants have failed to identify the deprivation of or damage to a protected property interest, their taking and inverse condemnation claims fail as a matter of law, and they were properly dismissed.
Judgment affirmed.
Notes
Act 195 also implicates the regulation of other forms of transportation for hire, such as limousines, but we need not discuss or address those here.
Appellants do not challenge the constitutionality of Act 195. Instead, they ask this Court to decide the novel constitutional issue of whether the City of Atlanta CPNCs establish a constitutionally protected property interest taken by the Act.
It is not the existing CPNC cap, alone, that sustains the value of the CPNCs. As Appellants reсognize, the City of Atlanta still retains dozens of unsold-but-available CPNCs, and the persistent value of the CPNCs arises, at least in part, from provisions in the City of Atlanta ordinance which require any remaining CPNCs to be sold at а price equal to or more than the sales price in previous years. See Atl. City Ord. § 162-61 (c) (“For purposes of this article only the term ‘market value’ shall mean the value calculated by the depаrtment based upon the sales prices for each CPNC during the prior year.”). Just as the Act does not divest Appellants of their CPNCs, the ordinance maintaining the value of the CPNCs remains intact. Further, any anticipаted profit or monetary benefit as part of a transfer of a CPNC — whether dependent on the “market value” as established by the City or on a secondary market — is not a protected property interest. See Minneapolis Taxi Owners Coalition,