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Judge won't place lien on Turnpike assets

E-mail|Link|Comments () June 12, 2009 02:11 PM

By Globe Staff

Toll payers who claim that their tolls are being unfairly used to pay for the Big Dig lost one round in their lawsuit against the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority when a Superior Court judge denied the plaintiffs' requests that liens be placed on the authority's assets.

Middlesex Superior Court Judge Herman Smith ruled Thursday that the plaintiffs have not provided evidence that the Turnpike Authority would be unable to pay damages if it loses the case.

"The plaintiffs have not submitted any evidence to suggest that the MTA lacks sufficient funds or will attempt to conceal, alienate, or dissipate assets to avoid paying a future judgment," the judge said in a decision Thursday.

The judge also noted that the suit had not been certified as a class action case and that currently there are only five plaintiffs in the case.

While the plaintiffs have asked for liens to be placed on $250 million of Turnpike property, the court said, "The plaintiffs have failed to submit any evidence which supports a finding of reasonable likelihood that the damages of the five named plaintiffs equal or exceed $250 million."

Attorney Jan Schlichtmann, who is bringing the case on behalf of the Massachusetts Turnpike Toll Equity Trust, said, "Our case will now proceed on its central premise that the current tolling system is clearly inequitable and must be fixed -- we will be moving to establish a class and begin discovery next week."

The lawsuit filed in Middlesex Superior Court seeks to repay Turnpike toll payers hundreds of millions of dollars and provide future relief from what their lawyers call "illegal taxes."

Schlichtmann's legal team has expanded to include Scott Harshbarger, a former state attorney general; Daniel B. Winslow, the chief legal counsel to former governor Mitt Romney, and Donald Griswold, a Washington-based partner in the international law firm Reed Smith LLP.

The lawsuit argues that the Turnpike must reimburse as much as $300 million to toll payers and change how it uses the tolls it collects. The lawsuit asserts that 58 percent of Turnpike tolls are used to finance Big Dig roads.