A lawsuit by Bird and Lime against the company Scooter Removal highlights the difficult challenges required to reconcile the private interests of new mobility companies with the access to the public realm on which they depend.
The business model of the San Diego-based company Scooter Removal involves picking rental scooters up off the streets and selling them back to the company that owns them.
Erik Shilling explains:
A company in San Diego co-founded by a former Marine has been scooping up the abandoned scooters that litter city streets owned by the startups Bird and Lime for months, giving some of them back to Bird in November in exchange for more than $40,000. Bird and Lime have since called the company’s activities “ransom,” and a legal battle has begun.
Shilling is reporting that Bird and Lime have filed a lawsuit against Scooter Removal, "arguing that the company’s removal of scooters was in many cases illegal." The article references legal impounding practices as a precedent, and the question of the lawsuit will come down to whether Scooter Removal's business meets the standards met by car impounders.
Read the full story: Vigilantes Are Taking Scooters Off the Streets of San Diego and Bird and Lime Are Pissed
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