An investigation is underway after a shooting on Birmingham's Highland Avenue this morning.

The shooting happened at 10:59 a.m. in the 2200 block of Highland Avenue. South Precinct Capt. Cory Hardiman said the gunfire appears to have followed an argument between a taxi cab driver and another man. The taxi cab driver was not injured.

The shooting victim was taken to UAB Hospital.

Birmingham police spokesman Lt. Sean Edwards said the taxi driver, whose name hasn't been released, picked up a fare this morning in Southside. There was some type of disagreement with the pay amount between the taxi driver and the citizen in the cab.

"We don't know exactly what that was, but there was some type of struggle,'' Edwards said. "A witness even saw that the customer that was sitting in the car began to attack the taxi driver. He was striking and all of the sudden the taxi driver grabbed his firearm. I guess he wanted to defend himself and during that process the customer was shot."

The shooting happened inside the cab, and the customer was shot in the leg. "During the struggle, the taxi driver attempted to strike him with the firearm and at that time firearm went off and struck him in the leg,'' he said.

Edwards said both men were white males in their late 30s or 40s. The customer, he said, appeared to be under the influence of some type of alcohol. "Maybe that has something to do with the agitation,'' he said. "It appeared the customer initiated the struggle."

The taxi cab driver said a few stops had been made as if the customer was trying to get more money to pay. "It appeared initially the taxi driver was going to work with him," Edwards said, "but I guess something changed in their arrangement they made."

Authorities don't anticipate charges being filed against the cab driver. "This is a very unusual incident in our city. We have taxi drivers pick up fares seven days a week, 24 hours a day and we never have an incident take place,'' Edwards said. "We want to ensure this doesn't happen again and make sure we communicate to our citizens they can be safe and don't have to have any fear that this may happen again. Fortunately it wasn't more serious than it was."