Judge Curtis Calloway, 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge, LA, certified OOIDA member Gary Ring’s case against the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development as a class-action lawsuit Aug. 21.
The ruling is the result of an incident that occurred in March 2000. Ring, an Illinois trucker, was stopped near the Louisiana-Texas border and ticketed by a weights and standards officer of the LaDOTD, who said Ring had run the weigh scale. The trucker was forced to pay a $2,000 fine on the spot – or have his trailer and tractor seized.
There was no court date set for Ring to protest the violation or give his side of the event. (It was later determined, after the suit was filed, Ring was not guilty.)
After many unsuccessful calls to state agencies, Ring filed suit against LaDOTD in March 2001, for violating his constitutional rights by demanding “on-the-spot” payment of fines without due process. Ring was represented by Robert G. Creely, Nicole Loup Hackett and Madro Bandaries.
Ring has garnered the support of other truckers who came forward with similar experiences in Louisiana. OOIDA members Stephen Tassin, Carl D. Picklesimer and Mary Ellen Hoffman testified for Ring and participated in the hearing. In addition, the three are also members of the class in the case.
"This now means that Gary Ring's lawsuit seeking damages from the Department of Transportation, in particular its Weights and Standards Division, for forcing him and others to pay on-site fines or post on-site bonds without adequate notice to contest these actions will be treated as a class action," Bandaries said.
“The class-action status was won because it was so evident that the Louisiana DOTD had not followed the law in setting up its systems of fining truckers for weight and scale violations."
Since that decision, the LaDOTD has appealed to the Louisiana 1st Circuit, asking that court to overturn Calloway’s class-action certification.
"I feel that the appeal court will uphold Judge Calloway,” Bandaries said.
Bandaries said he and his co-counsels would soon ask the court for a hearing to determine whether the law itself is unconstitutional.
A spokesman for LaDOTD did not return calls from Land Line.
--by René Tankersley, feature editor
René Tankersley can be reached at rene_tankersley@landlinemag.com.
