Just days after the New York City Business Integrity Commission (BIC) suspended Sanitation Salvage's business license in the wake of two fatal accidents, the private waste hauler fought back with a lawsuit against Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration. The company argued that it was not given the chance to defend itself before the city's BIC suspended its license.
In May, news broke that Sean Spence, a driver for Sanitation Salvage in the Bronx, N.Y., struck and killed an elderly man and a “homeless man” within a six-month period. (Further investigation led by ProPublica found that the “homeless man” was actually an off-the-books employee who had been working for Sanitation Salvage for more than a year.)
Both of these fatal incidents were deemed accidents, according to police, and Spence was not charged with either incident. He was, however, barred from driving private garbage trucks in the city months after the second incident.
These accidents, along with a slew of other incidents and questionable business practices, caused members of the industry and city leaders to lead protests calling for the BIC to suspend Sanitation Salvage’s business license.
CRAIN'S New York has more details:
Sanitation Salvage sued the de Blasio administration today after the private waste hauler's license was suspended in the wake of two fatal accidents.
The Bronx-based firm filed a request for judicial intervention in Supreme Court in Manhattan, arguing in part that the company was not given a chance to defend itself before the city's Business Integrity Commission yanked its license to operate Friday.
"This is a gross abuse of government authority that shocks the conscience, threatens to undermine the due process rights of all private carters and cries out for judicial invention to stop it," the company said in its suit.