2018 & 2020
A new lawsuit was filed in 2018 that appears to be another example of collusion between the attorneys. This is an early media report on it:
Here's the complaint:
https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4495593/Sound-Transit-Class-Complaint.pdf
The claim is that a provision in a lengthy 2015 session law amended a vehicle value schedule in RCW 82.44 in violation of Article II Sec. 37 of the state constitution. The allegedly-improper provision now is codified in RCW 81.104.160(1).
Case law establishes the state legislature does not improperly amend existing statutes when it does exactly what it did in that part of the 2015 enactment. The text at issue demonstrates the state intended to supplement a prior statute without repealing it (e.g., that initial reference to the statute “chapter 82.44 RCW” as it then existed), and the state legislature also properly adopted by express reference provisions of a prior statute (e.g., the provision's explicit reference to “chapter 82.44 RCW as it existed on January 1, 1996”). Both of those things are permitted:
This court has adopted the rule that Art. II, § 37, of the state constitution is not violated in the following instances: (1) complete acts which repeal prior acts or sections thereof on the same subject; (2) complete acts which adopt by reference provisions of prior acts; (3) complete acts which supplement prior acts or sections thereof without repealing them; (4) complete acts which incidentally or impliedly amend prior acts.
Naccarato v. Sullivan 46 Wn.2d 67 (1955)
Provisions in this complaint indicate indicate is a collusive lawsuit, not just bad lawyering. One of the allegations is a fatuous legal opinion that is exactly what Sound Transit’s lawyers and its PR team want. It is a false assertion that the Court provided a ruling in a 2006 opinion (the second one referenced above) that authorizes Sound Transit to continue imposing the annual car tax at a specific rate through a specific date:
“57. In 2006, the Washington Supreme Court permitted Sound Transit to continue to levy the 0.3% MVET for so long as the bonds remain outstanding.”
Here’s the referenced 2006 opinion:
The Court’s holdings in that opinion related to the taxing granted no affirmative relief for Sound Transit. That opinion also did not permit or authorize any amount of future taxing, taxing for any additional period of time, or taxing at any particular rate. The legal conclusions only were those necessary to reject the argument that terms in I-776 required Sound Transit to stop imposing the tax immediately. The opinion holds the contracts clause of the state constitution prohibited subsequent legislation (I-776) from operating to terminate one of the tax streams pledged as security to bondholders.
Contrary to what is asserted about that opinion in the new lawsuit, no claim even was raised in it based on how the 1996 Sound Move proposition presented to voters contained language limiting the amount of taxing (see Table 1 of Sound Move). The opinion certainly did not eliminate that provision in order to “permit[ ] Sound Transit to continue to levy the 0.3% MVET for so long as the bonds remain outstanding.”
Another reason this claim appears collusive is that it only relates to the 2015 amendment of RCW 81.104.160. The amendment the plaintiffs focus on -- the reference to use of the vehicle value depreciation schedule effective in 1996 for calculating the Sound Transit car taxes -- already was part of that statute. See, subsection 3, added by the legislature in 2010.
The lawyers involved in this litigation apparently set it up so Sound Transit could not lose any taxing authority or be ordered to refund tax amounts paid back to vehicle owners.
The claim is that a provision in a 2015 session law relating to Sound Transit’s annual car taxing improperly amended a vehicle value table in another statute. The allegedly-improper provision is identified in the complaint as the second half of Sec. 319 of the lengthy 2015 transportation session law that was approved in the extra session that year. The claim is that this provision unconstitutionally amended a vehicle value table in ch. 82.44 RCW.
Part of the relief the car owners seek is a declaratory judgment that the provision at issue is void. Let’s say that part of their claims is meritorious, and the court declares that this provision improperly amended the vehicle value table. The court could grant that relief – a declaratory judgement to that effect would be issued. What would that court order mean for anyone? Essentially nothing. If those provisions are declared void, the court then would read the statute as if it had not been amended by adding them. That would mean that terms already in the statute requiring use of the 1996 vehicle value table would continue to be used by DOL when calculating the annual car tax for Sound Transit.
That 2015 session law has a severability provision in section 425, which means that everything else in that session law would continue to be fully effective if a part of it is struck down. That would include the first half of section 319, which is the tax grant language. As that provision would remain operative, it would allow Sound Transit to continue imposing the same higher “ST3” tax rates when vehicle owners renew their registrations that it now imposes.
The five vehicle owners also seek other relief, mainly refunds of amounts unlawfully collected in the event the provision they seek voided is declared unconstitutional. There would be no such amounts, even if the allegedly-offending language were to be stricken as void, as the tax authority granting language in the 2015 session law isn’t unconstitutional and the statute already compelled DOL to use the 1996 vehicle value table.
Sound Transit actually would end up collecting MORE tax revenue going forward, as the court would order DOL to comply with the 1996 vehicle value table that the statute required DOL to use when calculating Sound Transit’s annual car tax prior to the 2015 amendment. According to the AGO, DOL has been ignoring that statute that has been on the books for the past eight years, and instead it now is using a 1999 vehicle value table:
2020 opinion regarding “Another $30 Car Tabs Initiative”
This litigation was intended by the attorneys to build on the precedents afforded by the second 2006 opinion (see above). For this defective initiative (I-976) the AG's office actually drafted a misleading ballot title to ensure the measure would be voided if approved.
The same lawyers prosecuted this lawsuit. For this appeal they used the same claims (including an identical single-subject violation), some of the same litigants, and an identical discovery-free procedural background. Burien’s debt contract impairment claim (in particular) could have provided them manna.
The justices used that 2006 opinion as the "dispositive" precedent for their ruling that I-976 violated the single-subject limit.
