New York City taxi owners and credit unions are suing the city and its Taxi and Limousine Commission for letting Uber expand despite the harm it has caused their business. The lawsuit, filed today in Manhattan federal court, accuses city regulators of easing the pathway for ride-hailing services to operate with fewer burdens, according to a report today from Reuters. The lawsuit could represent one of the last dying gasps of the country's largest taxi industry, which has moved on from its losing fight against Uber in hopes of extracting damages from the city itself.

The complaint states that medallion prices, which help artificially restrict the supply of city cabs, have fallen 40 percent from an all-time high of more than $1 million between April and June of this year. Meanwhile, the number of cab pickups fell by 3.83 million. Uber rides in Manhattan increased by 3.82 million in the same time period, the complaint says. The complaint also cites Uber as a primary contributor to the July bankruptcy filing of 22 taxi cab companies run by mogul Evgeny Freidman and the state's seizing of a credit union that specializes in medallion loans back in September.

Taxi medallion prices have fallen 40 percent

The plaintiffs include the Melrose, Progressive and Lomto Federal credit unions, which have loaned upwards of $2.4 billion for more than 4,600 taxi medallions; individual medallion holders; and the Taxi Medallion Owner Driver Association and League of Mutual Taxi Owners, both of which collectively represent more than 4,000 medallion holders.

"Defendants' deliberate evisceration of medallion taxicab hail exclusivity, and their ongoing arbitrary, disparate regulatory treatment of the medallion taxicab industry, has and continues to inflict catastrophic harm on this once iconic industry and the tens of thousands of hardworking men and women that depend on it for their livelihood," the complaint reads. Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment.