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.

Your household can earn more than $160,000 a year and still be considered part of the “middle class” in Rhode Island, according to a recent study by SmartAsset.

Rhode Island is the state with the 17th-highest income range for households to be considered middle class, based on SmartAsset’s analysis using 2024 income data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Pew Research Center defines the middle class as households earning roughly two-thirds to twice the national median household income.

According to a 2022 Gallup survey, about half of U.S. adults consider themselves middle class, with 38% identifying as “middle class” and 14% as “upper-middle class.” Higher-income Americans and college graduates were most likely to identify with the “middle class” or “upper-middle class,” while lower-income Americans and those without a college education generally identified as “working class” or “lower class.”

Here’s how much money your household would need to bring in annually to be considered middle class in Rhode Island.

How much money would you need to make to be considered middle class in RI?

“Nationally there are 59 million Americans who are providing care for a loved one and that is 49.5 billion hours of care annually. It’s valued at a trillion dollars,” said Catherine Taylor, the director of AARP Rhode Island; AARP, the nation’s largest non- profit, dedicated to empowering people 50 and older.

In Rhode Island, the report shows 155,000 people serve as caregivers, providing 111 million hours of care.

Barbara Morse reports on unpaid caregivers. (WJAR)

“The total impact is $2.8 billion a year,” said Taylor.

It’s not just babysitting a loved one.

“People are doing a lot more nursing tasks, you know–wound care, injections and things like that and they’re doing a lot more intensive daily care, like bathing, and dressing and feeding than we used to,” she said.

Its latest report–“Valuing the Invaluable.”

“The whole point of this report is to draw attention to how many family care givers there are and what the magnitude of what the need is for their support,” said Taylor.

That includes financial support and respite care.

AARP wants you to know this:

An older man using equipment in a gym. (FILE)

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In Rhode Island, temporary caregiver insurance or TCI is available to folks who qualify, for up to eight weeks.

There are federal tax credits you may qualify for. There is help.

“All you have to do is call 211 and say you’re a family caregiver and they will connect you to all of AARP’S trusted information, including a Rhode Island specific guide on resources for caregivers,” she said.