A tribunal has ruled that Free Now cannot be held liable for the actions of a taxi driver who was claimed to have spat at a passenger after allegedly making discriminatory remarks and refusing him service.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) has rejected a complaint under the Equal Status Act 2000 by Amit Chawla against FreeNow Ireland Ltd over the alleged incident on March 17, 2024 at Heuston Station in Dublin.
Free Now’s lawyers had said it had no responsibility for the actions of the self-employed drivers using its platform – calling the complaint “fundamentally flawed”.
Mr Chawla told a hearing last November that he was an Irish citizen of Indian origin who used a walking stick and that he was discriminated against on the basis of race, disability and sexual orientation due to the driver’s actions and words.
He said that when his pre-booked taxi arrived to Heuston Station at 9.25pm on the night of the incident and stopped across the road from him.
The driver initially contacted him by phone and identified him by saying: “You have a walking stick,” Mr Chawla said.
The claimant said the driver then proceeded to make remarks related to his skin colour and ethnicity and asked him: “You Indian?”
Mr Chawla’s evidence was that the driver also made “assertions about [his] sexual orientation” over the phone. Finally, the driver told him: “No, no, not you, not taking short trip” before hanging up.
After hanging up on him, the driver “continued to shout remarks” from his car across the street about Mr Chawla’s race and disability, and what a WRC adjudicator described as “assumptions related to sexual orientation”, the complainant said.
Mr Chawla said the driver then “spat at” him.
He said that Free Now had made “an admission of responsibility” when it expressed regret for “any unpleasantness on the part of the taxi driver” by email three days later.
Jason Murray BL, appearing for the company instructed by solicitors RDJ LLP, submitted that Mr Chawla had “named the incorrect respondent”.
Free Now’s involvement was limited to “providing a booking platform and an online payment platform”, Mr Murray said.
Counsel pointed to the Taxi Regulation Act 2013 and argued that the law “clarifies that a taxi operator is not and cannot be an employee of the respondent”.
Mr Chawla had made no complaint or allegation about the booking service run by Free Now, Mr Murray said.
“It is the respondent’s position that the complaint against the respondent is fundamentally flawed, misconceived and bound to fail,” Mr Murray submitted.
Rejecting the complaint, adjudication officer Maire Mulcahy concluded that Free Now had “no control over the taxi driver”.
She also found that the driver “was not acting as an agent of the named respondent”, and so vicarious liability did not arise.
