All Hail the Taxi Court : New York has its own way of dealing with cabbies who cheat or assail their passengers and race through residential zones at 60 m.p.h. And get this: Justice is relatively swift--and sweet.

As a New Yorker braced for life’s insults, Jeff Bilhuber thought he’d seen it all: Panhandlers who curse your unborn children; trains that catch fire in darkened tunnels; traffic jams that turn passengers into pit bulls.

But it was all just a warm-up for the cabby who kicked him in the ribs.

On a rainy night last year, Bilhuber and three friends grabbed a taxi for a short ride to a Manhattan bistro. When he gave the woman driver a 50-cent tip along with his $3 fare--a standard gratuity--she erupted with fury.

“I was called obscene names and told to pay more,” says Bilhuber, an interior decorator. “So I refused and got angry. After getting out of the cab, I left my door open on purpose. I didn’t like the way I’d been treated.” Neither did the cabby, who chased Bilhuber down the street, cornered him in a stairwell and kicked him in the ribs. When he protested, she kicked him again and drove off.

“I was stunned,” he recalls. “It was the most violent cab ride I’d ever had and it was a woman, for goodness sakes. You can only get pushed so far in this life. There comes a time when you have to get some justice.”

A time, Bilhuber learned, for taxi court.

In New York’s fraying urban fabric, there is an occasional golden thread, and the rough-and-ready court set up by the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission to hear civilian cab complaints is one. Other legal chambers may look more regal, but few are as efficient or satisfying.

Based in a dingy office building near Times Square, taxi court screens about 12,000 cases each year, promising quick action to people who don’t usually fight city hall. Here, in a windowless hearing room, the crook who took Aunt Mildred five miles out of her way to JFK Airport gets his comeuppance. Here, the boor who blasted 60 m.p.h. down a residential street will face the music. Did a white cabby tell a black customer to get lost? Let him tell it to the judge.

Justice is relatively swift--and sweet. Simply fill out a complaint form and wait two or three months for your case to be called. A typical hearing before an impartial administrator takes 15 to 20 minutes and, says Jane Polisar, chief counsel for the busy metropolitan court, more than 75% of judgments go against drivers.

In New York, civility may be for suckers, but taxi violations are no joke. Judges can fine drivers $200 or more for refusing to take people where they want to go. A cabby can be out $300 for abusing customers. In extreme cases, a judge can suspend a driver’s taxi permit for 30 days or more.

Just ask Levana Mizrahi, the stocky cab driver who beat up Bilhuber.

When their day in court arrives, the two glare at each other in a small hearing room. Mizrahi is flanked by a “taxi representative,” a civilian advocate who has no legal training. The driver pleads her case before a judge who is a moonlighting lawyer, and the noisy proceedings are taped on a cheap recorder.

At first, Mizrahi insists that she wasn’t working on the night in question. Then she changes her strategy, recalling the incident with great clarity and claiming that the four passengers were abusive drunks who scared her.

“Do I look like a monster?” she asks, tugging a woolen hat over her ears and shifting imperiously in a plastic chair. “I am only a lady.”

Judge Peter Mazer is not impressed. He fines the driver $700 and suspends her taxi permit for 30 days. It all takes less than 10 minutes.

Bilhuber is amazed. “Now that’s service,” he says with a grin. “Am I happy? I am indeed.”

You get a different story out in the waiting room, where dozens of unhappy cabbies assemble daily for their cases to be heard.

“This is a goddamn kangaroo court,” mutters Samuel Taylor, a 20-year veteran of New York’s mean, potholed streets. “In this place, you’re guilty until proven innocent. And everybody’s got their hands in your pockets.”

Nearby, cabby Artimio Nunez nods in agreement. “You know how I’d get justice in these hearings?” he whispers. “With a machine gun. That’s the only thing these people understand.”

*

New York is a city of never-ending wars. Landlords and tenants. Immigrants and old-timers. Uptown and downtown. Yet few conflicts endure like cabby and passenger. In the Big Apple, stories of taxi trauma are bandied about at cocktail parties and rehashed over dinner as the stuff of legend.

The taxi industry generates $1 billion in annual profits and transports an estimated 200 million people each year, according to TLC reports. There are more than 32,000 cabbies prowling the streets, and New Yorkers depend on them for everything from daily commutes to airport runs and shopping. Fewer people here own cars than in any other American city, and many residents have no choice but to step into the street, raise their hands and hail a hack.

Nowadays, passengers may feel like Margaret Mead. Only 16% of New York drivers speak English as their main language and fewer than 10% of new applicants for licenses last year were born in America. Most drivers come from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Africa, the Caribbean or the former Soviet Union.

For many, hacking is a bargain. Where else in America can newcomers make $500 to $600 a week for an eight-hour work shift, with little or no qualifications?

Yet the novelty can wear thin. Every New Yorker has stories about drivers who get hopelessly lost and need a map for simple directions. On occasion, cultural differences create problems for passengers, especially American women, who assert their rights and tell cabbies to drive more safely.

Although most cab rides are uneventful, they can turn nightmarish in a second. Drivers are forever griping about customers who stiff them on fares. They worry even more about riders who become disorderly--and may well be armed.

It can be a deadly crapshoot: Last year, 42 New York cabbies were killed by passengers, mostly after dark in areas such as Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx. That led the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to label cab driving in Gotham as the nation’s most dangerous job in 1993.

“You’ve got to be more cautious than ever about who you pick up,” Taylor says. “But that doesn’t change the law at all. You can’t refuse to take people to particular neighborhoods, even if you know in your gut that something’s fishy. If you try to do that, they’ll nail you.”

Refusals, as they’re called, are among the most common violations in taxi court, chief counsel Polisar says. That rule and others have been strictly enforced ever since New York City established the taxi court system in 1971.

“We try to be as fair here as we can,” she says. “And most drivers know the regulations. We make them clear, yet some aren’t happy campers.”

Judge Mazer says he doesn’t blame cabbies for getting angry. But, he adds: “This place isn’t as one-sided as some of them think. There are many times when I’ll throw out some of the charges against them, if they really can’t be proven.”

In this court, nobody stands on ceremony--and nobody’s getting rich. Typically, half a dozen or more attorneys act as judges, and they pocket $89 for a morning or afternoon session.

“This may seem like chump change, but the money adds up,” one judge says. “You’re not exactly making a fortune here, but it’s steady, basic work.”

Meanwhile, the taxi advocates get a minimum of $35 for each hearing. New York doesn’t expect them to be attorneys because most drivers couldn’t afford them. The only requirements are that advocates pass a background check and show some familiarity with the system. After that, they’re on their own.

And sometimes, as Glenn Moises found out, there are fireworks.

*

It was a cold night in Greenwich Village, just before Christmas, and Moises and a friend were anxious to get back home to Brooklyn. When a yellow cab pulled up to the curb, they hopped right in.

That’s as far as they got.

The cabby, Victor Greenberg, eyed the two men suspiciously. Moises is Latino, his companion black, and the driver claims that gut instinct told him to be wary. He demanded money upfront to make sure he’d get paid. That is highly illegal, and Moises, a veteran New York probation officer, told him so.

The two men quarreled and Greenberg refused to budge; he ordered the riders out and drove off, glad to be rid of them.

His troubles had just begun. Three months later, Greenberg and Moises will meet in taxi court.

Instead of representing himself, the cabby has hired Joseph Skifo Jr. as his advocate, hoping to get a break from Judge Robert Burstein. Skifo, 36, and formerly a mechanic, has represented drivers for 11 years, and what he lacks in formal education he makes up for in attitude and television smarts.

“I don’t know much about lawyers, but I watch ‘em on TV and pick up tips,” Skifo explains. “Like that blond lady in L.A. who defended the Menendez case? She may be abrasive, but she gets results. Just like me.”

Greenberg looks hopeful as he enters the darkened hearing room. But he might just as well have stayed home.

“Don’t you know that asking riders for money in advance is illegal?” the judge asks. “It’s incredible to me that you don’t know that.”

Greenberg tries to wriggle off the hook, but his comments only make things worse. Did he fail to take the two men to Brooklyn because one of them was black? Burstein asks. Looking flustered, the cabby concedes the point.

The judge finds Greenberg guilty. It adds up to $400 in fines, payable immediately, even if the cabby appeals to a special city commission.

“That’s outrageous!” Greenberg shouts. “That’s outrageous!”

Moises ignores him, telling the judge he wants to keep track of the case. He has no intention of letting this matter slip through the cracks.

“Yeah, so you can see me hang,” the cabby snaps.

Moises rises to his feet and threatens to have the driver arrested. The judge calls for quiet, but Skifo stirs to life.

“Wait a minute! He didn’t threaten you!” the advocate shouts at Moises. “You threatened him! This is a free country. You can say what you want!”

Moises bolts the room in a fury, his victory tainted. Skifo waits for him to disappear down the hallway, then turns to his livid client.

“If you pay $400 for a scumbag, it’s not worth it,” Skifo advises.

Now Burstein erupts, his face reddening, his hands trembling: “If I had the power, I’d hold you in contempt, Mr. Skifo!” he booms. “You can’t talk about people that way. I’ll have order in here!”

For a few seconds, taxi court stops in its tracks. Judges poke their heads out of hearing rooms to check out the commotion; other cabbies gape at Greenberg as he storms from the second-story offices.

Then, just as suddenly, calm returns.

“Sometimes things can get a little hot around here,” Burstein says with a weak smile. “But if you ask me, it’s all about quality of life in a big city. When it comes to quality of life, people get very excited.”