Court decision opens the door for reimplementing Rhode Island truck toll

However, the court did find that the capping of tolls by which a truck can be assessed only a certain number of tolls in a day for various activities did violate the dormant Commerce Clause. But the court also found that the capping provision could be “severed” from the law, so that the ruling against the caps does not lead to the entire law being invalidated.

The state’s truck toll was applied only to intrastate bridges, so no bridges crossing into another state were affected. The number of bridges that fell under the law: 13. 

ATA and several companies filed the original lawsuit in 2018. One of the initial plaintiffs was less-than-truckload carrier New England Motor Freight; it went out of business in 2019. Among the other plaintiffs is Cumberland Farms, a major New England convenience store chain, and M&M Transport, a dedicated carrier that last year was acquired by Schneider National (NYSE: SNDR).

The 1st Circuit’s decision handed down in early December comes more than 14 months after oral arguments in the case.

Rhode Island’s request to have the case dismissed was backed in a lower federal court in 2019, but a 2022 decision saw the ATA prevail in its fight against the law, which was blocked by Judge William Smith in the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island.

At issue is the relationship between the law and the dormant Commerce Clause.

In the 2022 decision, the District Court said a toll system can be set up to comply with the clause. But it also said at the time that RhodeWorks, the name of the tolling system that was designed to raise funds for bridge repair and maintenance, “fails to fairly apportion its tolls among bridge users based on a fair approximation of their use of the bridges, was enacted with a discriminatory purpose and is discriminatory in effect. The statute’s tolling regime is unconstitutional under the dormant Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution.”

It was that finding that was reversed Friday.

Citing legal precedent, the Court of Appeals said a tolling system can be justified under the dormant Commerce Clause “if it is based on some fair approximation of the tolled facility, is not excessive in relation to the government benefits conferred, and does not discriminate against interstate commerce.”

There are numerous definitions of the dormant Commerce Clause. The Constitutional Law Reporter website said that the clause, which is not explicit in the Constitution, “automatically invalidates a protectionist state law, whether or not the federal government has legislated on the issue.”

“Our analysis of RhodeWorks revolves around two questions,” the court wrote. “First, does the statue discriminate against interstate commerce? And second, is the burden imposed by the tolls based on some fair approximation of use of Rhode Island bridges?”

The charge of discrimination was rooted in the fact that RhodeWorks only applies to Class 8 vehicles. After discussion of some theoretical comparisons in other fields, the court comes back to the question of how similar Class 8 vehicles are to the other universe of trucks that wouldn’t come under RhodeWorks.

The conclusion was succinct. Citing language in the prior decisions, the Court of Appeals said, “there is simply ‘no concrete evidence demonstrating an increase in Rhode Island-based companies’ use of un-tolled trucks, changes in vehicles fleets, diversion or any other data demonstrating that smaller trucks compete in the same market as tractor trailers.” 

ATA, the court said, “offers no actual evidence that tractor-trailers compete with single-unit trucks in Rhode Island, let alone that out-of-state tractor-trailers compete with in-state single-unit trucks in Rhode Island.”

Challenging a “neutral” status under the dormant Commerce Clause, the Court of Appeals said, “must have a substantial competitive interest on nonstate interests.” 

“The record provides insufficient support for ATA’s contention that exempting all single-unit trucks from RhodeWorks tolling structure transgresses the dormant Commerce Clause,” the court said. 

The caps in RhodeWorks are three-pronged. A truck only gets billed for one way on a bridge; a ride between Connecticut and Massachusetts with the Ocean State in-between will not cost more than $20 (though a lower court said at current rates, racking up that much was mathematically impossible); and total payments per day max out at $40.

The way the caps are structured, the Court of Appeals found, would mean that local companies would “disproportionately benefit” from the caps compared to out-of-state trucks. It cited ATA submissions that in a certain observed period, 39.9% of the reduction in tolls brought on by the caps was accrued by Rhode Island trucks, even though they only accounted for 18.6% of the toll transactions. 

“Given this disparate impact on similarly situated tractor-trailers, the caps are discriminatory,” the court wrote, citing precedents in other cases. “No basis exists for treating this discrimination as permissible.”

Another issue tackled by the Court of Appeals was that of “fair approximation.” It deals with the question of whether the tolls are correlated with the Class 8 vehicles’ use and impact on the 13 bridges.

Citing a precedent involving airport user fees, the Court of Appeals said Rhode Island “may collect a fee from the most intensive users without having to also collect a fee from lesser users. Rhode Island can reasonably point to a benefit from deciding to apply its toll to only tractor-trailers rather than to all the varied and much more numerous vehicles that cross its bridges.”

On Page 28 of the 52-page decision, the court then tackles the issue of whether rendering the caps in violation of the dormant Commerce Clause invalidates the entire law. The finding: It doesn’t. 

“Invalidating RhodeWorks based on nothing more than the unconstitutionality of the caps would cut against the legislature’s resolve to raise funds for its bridges,” the court wrote. It does not eliminate the state’s “stated preference” to be able to “excise … defective provisions.”

The decision remands the case back to the lower court. 

Richard Pianka, ATA Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel, issued a statement that was mostly positive. “We’re pleased that the Court of Appeals agreed with us and the trial court that the RhodeWorks tolls unconstitutionally discriminated against interstate commerce, and are reviewing the decision and considering next steps,” he said.

In a prepared statement, Chris Maxwell, CEO of the Rhode Island Trucking Association, was mostly positive about the decision also.

“The First Circuit confirmed that the RhodeWorks caps spared the Rhode Island trucking industry, and the Rhode Island residents they serve, from the full burden of the tolls,” Maxwell said. “Suppose Gov. McKee and the General Assembly are considering reactivating the tolls without those protective caps. In that case, they first need to consider whether they are willing to break the promise that was made to the local business community as a condition of passage of the legislation, and be candid with Rhode Island residents that these increased costs will be reflected in the price of goods, nearly all of which reach them by truck.”

An email sent to the ATA had not been responded to by publication time. The organization’s website had not posted a reaction to the decision as of early Sunday.

In a prepared statement, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said his office “[had] been confident that this will be the eventual outcome, and we are grateful for the First Circuit’s well-reasoned decision in this case.”

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