The trucking industry will have to pay its own legal bills for the unsuccessful eight-year-old lawsuit it brought to stop Rhode Island’s truck toll system, a federal judge ruled Friday, March 27.

The American Trucking Associations was seeking $21 million in attorneys fees and other costs from the state, but a decision from U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. says the truckers lost the case and will have to pick up the tab.

The state had previously filed a counterclaim for reimbursement of $9 million in legal bills, but an earlier recommendation from U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan had already thrown cold water on that possibility.

McConnell ordered American Trucking Associations to pay Rhode Island $199,281, a tiny fraction of the amount the state spent defending the network of tolls on tractor trailers.

Settling the lawyer tab may finally bring an end to a court fight that bounced back and forth through the federal judiciary since the toll system launched and the truckers brought suit in 2018.

As it stands, the state’s truck toll network has been mothballed since 2022 when a since-overturned judge’s ruling temporarily ruled it unconstitutional.

The Rhode Island Department of Transportation said it hopes to relaunch the tolls around March 2027.

The court costs fight hinged on which side could claim legal “prevailing party” status as the winner of the lawsuit.

The trucking industry claimed that it had won because the First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled an in-state trucker discount mechanism, known as caps, in the original truck toll system was unconstitutional.

But Rhode Island argued that it is the winner because the appeals court had ruled that the larger system and broad concept of truck tolls is constitutional and can relaunch with the discounts stripped out.

“The Court determines that ATA has vastly overstated the benefit, if any, that they have received from the ultimate resolution of their challenge to the RhodeWorks program,” McConnell wrote.

The truckers “failed to obtain any practical benefit from the First Circuit’s severance of the [in-state toll] caps,” he went on. “Specifically, the evidence from this dispute confirmed that the lack of daily caps will result in ATA paying a higher amount in daily tolls and that it does not receive any tangible financial benefit from their elimination.”

In her December analysis of the legal fees question, Sullivan had concluded that the Trucking Associations’ outside counsel had overbilled and overstaffed the case.

But she had recommended that the industry be reimbursed $2.7 million for its bills, while McConnell’s ruling gives it nothing.

Thousands of Vermonters took to the streets Saturday, condemning the actions and policies of President Donald Trump in peaceful protests at dozens of locations.

They lined up on Main Street in Newport and on Creamery Row in Hardwick, on the village green in Fair Haven and in towns from Burlington to Brattleboro. In all, around 50 “No Kings” demonstrations were held.

Castleton resident Robert Revell stood along Route 7 in Rutland with hundreds of others.

“I’m just so angry,” said Revell, who held a three dimensional sign that incorporated a blow-up planet Earth with words below that read “Mother DEMANDS NO kings, no pedos and no liars.”

“We have a war that we’re not supposed to be in, we have a president who does nothing but lie,” he said. “I am just fed up. I’m 73 in a couple weeks and I lived through the Nixon thing and I’m just here to protest and share my heart.”

Around him, throngs of people, many in costume, lined several blocks along Route 7 waving flags and handmade signs. Some rang cow bells or thumped tambourines. Many passing motorists responded with staccato horn blasts.

Nationwide, more than 3,000 protests were planned for Saturday in large cities and small towns. They have been organized by national and local groups, including well-known progressive coalitions such as Indivisible, 50501 and MoveOn.

Nina Keck

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Vermont Public

“For me, it boils down to the cruelty I’m seeing in the world right now,” said Hannah Abrams, of Mendon. “I think that our president instills a lot of cruelty among the people he doesn’t like. And actually for the people who do vote for him too, because they’re not any better off with him in office.”

“There are a lot of people who say this is not America,” Abrams added. “And I would like to say, it’s exactly America, it’s just targeting different people now … Sadly, this is not new.”

Nina Keck

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Vermont Public

Mary Jane Demko, 89, of Rutland, showed up to her local protest in a wheelchair driven by her daughter, Stephanie Brush. Demko carried a sign on her lap that read “IMPEACH THE SOB!”

“I couldn’t stay in and not be part of this,” Demko said. “He’s too evil.”

Karen Lorentz of Shrewsbury said she too couldn’t stay away. At 80, she said Saturday’s event in Rutland was her first protest. She held a handmade sign she said a friend had helped her make.

“I’m really old and when the Vietnam War was on I was a new teacher and I didn’t have time,” she said. “But I felt strongly that I needed to be here today.”