SDNY COURTHOUSE, July 10 – The NYC
Administration of Zohran Mamdani wants to shut down the
delivery app Motoclick as predatory. Motoclick and its CEO
on July 10 argued that they want the names of the City's
witnesses against them. Inner City Press covered the
hearing.
On January 15, 2026 the Mamdani
administration put out a press release that
"today a case was filed on behalf of the City of New York
in New York State Supreme Court against predatory delivery
app Motoclick for egregiously violating the city’s Delivery
Worker Laws. DCWP estimates that Motoclick and CEO Juan
Pablo Salinas Salek owe workers millions in stolen pay and
damages and seeks to shut the company down completely. Mayor
Zohran Mamdani joined Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice
Julie Su and DCWP Commissioner Sam Levine... Commissioner
Levine also today launched a compliance blitz, sending
notices to Instacart, DoorDash, Grubhub, Uber, and others
warning them to adhere to new Delivery Worker Laws taking
effect on January 26."
Salinas Salas lives in New Jersey; he
removed the case to Federal Court. Under Federal discovery
rules, the defendants are asking for the City's witnesses,
who the City's lawyer on July 10 called the "informants."
The City does not want to give
the names, even on an attorneys eyes only basis, saying
that people don't understand that and their enforcement
effort would be hindered if it "got out" that they were
giving names.
For now, it will be
attorneys eyes only - but it seems with full disclosure
45 days before any trial.
The defense, it seems, is that
delivery people work for more than one app, so that
calculating how many Motoclick is paying them back on how
long they are logged on to the app is not accurate.
The defense lawyer said he wants to do
discovery into how many phones people have, and if they
are working for more than one app on a given day.
That doesn't happen, the City's
lawyer said flatly.
Judge Aaron asked, How do you
know? The City's lawyer said that since they
look at others in the industry, they find that the big
apps' usage is of 80% of more of a delivery person's
time.
The defense lawyer, then Magistrate
Judge Stuart D. Aaron, asked if the Mamdani Administration
is going after the larger delivery companies like Grubhub,
Ubereats and DoorDash.
"Not in court," the City's lawyer
said.
One wonders, why not?
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The case is City of New York v.
Patio Delivery, Inc. et al., 1:26-cv-1287 (Broderick /
Aaron)