Three Seattle law firms have filed a class-action lawsuit against the Washington State Department of Transportation challenging how it fines commuters who don’t pay SR-520 tolls.
WSDOT’s fines are a gouge. The penalty starts at 10 times the toll amount, and can quickly morph into thousands of dollars. It’s easy to skip a toll without even knowing it; for example, if your bank changes your credit card number because of a fraud issue, your automatic toll-paying device won’t work. And it’s easy to not notice you owe a fine if WSDOT gets your address wrong. Then the penalties explode into three and four figures.
And there’s no appeal except to WSDOT’s kangaroo court, which does you no good, because the administrative law judges hearing those cases aren’t given authority to give people relief from the astronomical penalties.
Back in 2010, a judge warned the Legislature this penalty system probably is unconstitutional. Now, lawyers for outraged commuters intend to find out, and WSDOT itself could end up on the hook for refunds and triple damages under the state’s consumer protection law.
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2025587503_westneat01xml.html
Photo: The SR-520 bridge, worse than a Mafia loan shark.