MWAA Class Action: Tolls That Fund Metro Are Unconstitutional

A class action lawsuit is alleging that the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority has overstepped its governmental powers by using driver tolls to work on a new project.

In fact, the text of the Metro Toll lawsuit goes as far as to call the MWAA an “extra-constitutional regime” and an “unprecedented creature.”

According to the class action lawsuit, the MWAA has unlawfully used collected tolls to finance extensions to various Metro routes on a new project called the Silver Line.

The Metro toll lawsuit holds that the MWAA wields the power to tax, spend public money, police the public, and exercise the right of eminent domain without any kind of direct restriction by the voting public.

According to the text of the complaint: “MWAA can make billion-dollar decisions to approve any project or facility.”

The complaint of the Metro toll lawsuit goes on to say, “…and to pay for the facilities it desire, the MWAA can fashion any revenue-generating scheme it desires.”

The lawsuit alleges that the MWAA exercises excessive power with minimal oversight from the people whose lives it controls.

Though roads and other elements of the MWAA run through the nation’s capital and the Commonwealth of Virginia, neither the government of Washington DC nor any state or local government of Virginia has any control over the MWAA, the lawsuit contends.

Additionally, the MWAA fully controls both the ­­­Washington Dulles International Airport (Dulles) and Ronald Regan Washington National Airport, the two DC-area airports owned by the federal government. Additionally, MWAA controls all roads that lead to Dulles. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the transportation systems controlled by the MWAA, according to the complaint.

The Metro toll lawsuit holds that the MWAA has funded itself through “wildly inflated ‘tolls,’ amounting to more than $2.8 billion dollars” to subsidize itself. The lawsuit further claims that the MWAA exercises its allegedly unconstitutional powers to extract tolls to fund itself.

The plaintiffs who filed the lawsuit seek to recoup these tolls and to have the court place injunctions against the MWAA to bring the agency under more control from the voting public. This could include injunctions to stop collecting tolls for the purposes of funding new MWAA projects that have not been approved by the voting public.

The exact number of potential Class Members is unknown, but could ultimately include anyone who used a toll road or paid other fees since 2008 to the MWAA , which again, controls airports, roads, and other transportation systems in Washington, D.C. and Virginia.

“According to MWAA statistics, between 95 million and 105 million transactions take place on the Dulles Toll Road each year. This means that, over the period since MWAA began managing the Toll Road, more than 700 million transactions have taken place,” the lawsuit states.

Attorneys Bob Cynkar, Patrick M. McSweeney and Christopher I. Kachouroff of McSweeney, Cynkar and Kachouroff PLLC; and S. Kyle Duncan and Gene C. Schaerr of Schaerr | Duncan LLP are representing the proposed Class.

The MWAA Road Tolls Class Action Lawsuit is Phil Kerpen, et al. v. Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, et al., Case No. 1:16-cv-01401, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.