Louisiana Weights & Standards officers who cited trucker Gary Ring at the Toomey, LA, weigh station last March, are among the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development officials being deposed July 23 by attorneys in the lawsuit against LaDOTD.

The class action lawsuit resulted from a W&S citation issue March 9, 2000, at the Interstate 10 scales near Toomey, LA, to Ring for bypassing the scales. Ring was fined $2,000, which he was order to pay on the spot or go to jail. In addition to maintaining his innocence, Ring is suing the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD) and its division of Weights and Standards (W&S) for violating his and other truckers' constitutional rights to due process.

Before the lawsuit, DOTD through its W&S division required only out-of-state truckers to pay their fines immediately or have their tractor, trailer and loads seized. After paying the fine, the driver received no notice of and were not given the opportunity to respond at a hearing. Howard Elliott, one of Ring's attorneys, found that Louisiana has been violating the rights of truckdrivers for more than 10 years, collecting approximately $10 million per year in fines. Elliott is the former general counsel for the Louisiana State Police.

Since filing the lawsuit, Ring's attorneys have received calls from more than 400 truckers who were cited by LaDOTD W&S. As a result of the lawsuit, DOTD W&S now also requires Louisiana resident truckdrivers to pay citations on the spot, and with each citation issues a letter notifying truckers of their right to contest the ticket.

Banderies has set up a special telephone number for taking calls from drivers who received these citations from W&S in Louisiana. Drivers with these types of citations should call toll free 1-866-655-8236.