Remember waaay back in 2014, when Uber was still young, the taxi industry were getting really mad about it, and there was a very cranky bloke kicking around Sydney doing citizen’s arrests on a bunch of drivers?
Welp, that bloke – Russell Howarth, to be specific – has been embroiled in an ongoing legal battle over said citizen’s arrests, which has finally culminated in his being ordered to pay nearly $400,000 in legal costs to Uber.
In 2014 Howarth had got in the habit of hailing an Uber with the app, and at the end of the ride performing a citizen’s arrest on the driver for breaching the NSW Passenger Transport Act (a dog move, if you ask me).
Obviously the law changed in 2015, making it a bit harder for him to justify haranguing people just trying to make a living; Uber still took him the hell to court for it.
Back in April he was slapped with a restraining order permanently banning him from harassing Uber drivers or riders. When that was handed down, the judge in charge of doling out the restraining order told Howarth and the court that “not every contravention of the law that a citizen witnesses will authorise the conduct of a citizen’s arrest“.
Now he’s been ordered to cough up about 60% of the money Uber spent on legal representation. Unsurprisingly, Howarth chose to represent himself for much of the legal proceedings, so I guess he will have saved a bit of money there.
indeed.
Source: SMH.
Image: Taxi Driver.
