A lime-green van is parked in front of the Des Moines home where 43-year-old Baljinder Kaur lives with two of her three children. The van's vivid color is the first clue that this isn't an ordinary suburban mom van—it's a decommissioned wheelchair-accessible taxi, one of the few cabs equipped to pick up special-needs passengers in Seattle and King County.

Kaur isn't a licensed taxicab driver herself, even though, like most working moms, she essentially moonlights as one: The 43-year-old drives her daughter to high school in the decommissioned taxi, she shuttles herself to various part-time jobs in it, she even drives to evening taxi-driving classes in the van, which she and her husband bought together for $30,000 several years ago.

"It was our living," the Punjabi woman explains. "I stayed at home while my husband worked 10 hours a day driving the taxi."

It was in the driver's seat of this cab that Kaur's husband, Harjit Singh, was fatally shot last summer. After Singh's death, his wheelchair-accessible taxi license, one of only a handful of such licenses in Seattle and King County, was revoked. Now Kaur is suing the City of Seattle and King County for the right to take over her late husband's license and continue driving the taxi to support her family.

"My husband is gone, our business is gone, I am now a single mom," Kaur says. "I have lost everything. We had to start over. We need this taxi back."

Taxicab licenses are strictly regulated and hard to come by, making them an incredibly hot commodity: Seattle caps the number of regular taxicabs in the city at 850. In 2010, Seattle established a new program for issuing wheelchair-accessible-cab licenses, in conjunction with King County. Only 15 licenses were originally released via lottery (that number has since been upped to 45), with the caveat that drivers must fulfill a probationary five-year driving period before the license would be considered the full, transferable property of the taxicab driver.

Kaur's husband was one of the lucky few to receive this special probationary license. However, on August 28, 2012—two and a half years into his probationary period—Singh was shot five times in the chest while dropping off a passenger in Burien. Court records note that the engine of his Farwest Taxi van was still running when paramedics arrived. Kaur became the executor of her late husband's estate, and as such, Kaur petitioned the city and the county for the right to fulfill her husband's probationary driving period, reasoning that she already owned a taxi and the job's flexible driving hours would mean she could optimize time with her children. Plus, she could hardly afford to lose her husband's $5,000 a month in take-home pay.

Her appeal was denied.

Last November, the city's Finance and Administrative Services department cited Singh's "failure... to personally drive the vehicle 40 hours per week" as its reason for revoking the license. The King County Board of Appeals unanimously agreed with the city's decision in March, noting that the license "cannot be transferred until after five years from the original date of issue." An appeal to the city's hearing examiner was also denied.

But Kaur's attorney, John O'Rourke, says that when evaluating Kaur's request, city and county officials have overlooked an important clause in the city regulations that govern the transfer of taxicab licenses. Specifically in cases of death or disability, the licensing director has the power to decide the fate of a taxicab license "on a case-by-case basis depending upon the specific circumstances involved."

Fred Podesta, director of Finance and Administrative Services—which licenses cabs within Seattle—could not be reached for comment on Kaur's case.

On April 13, O'Rourke filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court against a number of city and county agencies and appealing the license revocation.

"The city has taken a very mechanical approach—Singh can't drive the cab, therefore the license is terminated," O'Rourke says. "If that's the approach we're going to follow, why would we even have a rule that says the director can consider special circumstances? This case is entirely composed of special circumstances."

But attorneys for the city and county are holding firm. In their joint response to the lawsuit, they note that the city's previous revocation order "speaks for itself," that "Singh is not an eligible driver" because he is dead, and that, being dead, has failed to "personally drive the wheelchair accessible taxicab 40 hours per week for at least 40 weeks per year." Meanwhile, another taxicab driver and father of three, Faize Kaifa, has added his name to the lawsuit as the next driver eligible to receive Singh's revoked license. "I remain next in line to receive the Assisted Taxi for Hire License Endorsement," Kaifa's affidavit states. "Every day that goes by without the issuance of the license to him is a day in which his income earning potential is unjustifiably and improperly restrained," his motion for intervention adds.

The case remains in limbo, as a court date has yet to be scheduled. Meanwhile, Kaur is busy preparing herself for another court case—the prosecution of a former family friend accused of murdering her husband.

"I just don't understand why the city is doing this to us," Kaur says. "If my husband did something wrong, I could understand. But he was working. He was killed. We just want to move on and survive. Why should my family suffer so much?"