ATA sought compensation in Rhode Island trucking tolls case; it got nothing

The two sides involved in the now mostly-ended legal battle over Rhode Island truck tolls each asked a court for big payouts from the other side for legal fees, but few were ultimately ordered after two separate judicial officers got done with their work.

Both the American Trucking Associations and the defendants they sued, one individual and one agency of the Rhode Island state government, sought payments in the millions from the other side in the battle over whether the state could implement a truck-only tolling program dubbed RhodeWorks.

In that litigation, Rhode Island mostly prevailed, but not entirely; the ATA could claim one small victory. That dichotomy is why both parties could seek to have the other side pay its legal bills.

The end result, through a ruling last week by Rhode Island Federal District Court Judge John McConnell, is that the ATA is getting nothing and the state of Rhode Island is getting an amount that would be considered small by most measures.

The background irony is that though an appellate court decision in December 2024 ultimately allowed the truck-specific tolls to be implemented, Rhode Island hasn’t launched them yet and said recently that it won’t be able to until next year.

At a recent hearing before a Rhode Island House committee, according to news reports, Robert Rocchio, the interim director of the Rhode Island Department of Transportation said the equipment needed to conduct the truck-only tolls “is past its life cycle and needs to be rebuilt.”

“RIDOT expects the gantries to be operational in March 2027, but the timeline is still dependent on how long it takes to install the new gantries and for the state to find a new collection contractor,” the report from television station WPRI said.

So even as the regulation that kicked off the lengthy court battle awaits the infrastructure needed to be put into operation, the two legal combatants over the issue went to court to lay their claims to have the other side pay their legal expenses. In the end, nobody got all that much, though they asked for plenty.

Both sides asked to be considered “prevailing parties.” They both were granted that status by Magistrate Patricia Sullivan, though in the case of ATA, to a limited degree. More than $20 million sought by ATA The biggest request came from ATA.

It had asked for just over $20 million for work by both its in-house and outside counsel, the law firm of Mayer Brown, as well as related legal expenses. It also sought just over $1 million in costs. The state’s request was for attorney fees of just over $7. 6 million, and other costs of $789,795. 19.

The ATA made its request even though the truckers’ association had limited success in the earlier litigation to stop RhodeWorks, first approved in 2016. The ATA filed suit against it two years later. The ATA first prevailed in front of Judge William Smith in September 2022.

“Because RhodeWorks fails to fairly apportion its tolls among bridge users based on a fair approximation of their use of the bridges, was enacted with a discriminatory purpose, and is discriminatory in effect, the statute’s tolling regime is unconstitutional under the dormant Commerce Clause,” Judge Smith said in his decision to stop RhodeWorks.

Circuit court overturned lower court On appeal from Rhode Island, the First Circuit in December 2024 mostly overturned Judge Sullivan and ruled Rhode Island could proceed with its truck toll plan.

But that court also ruled that a daily cap on the amount of tolls paid by trucks, which was seen as a policy to protect local truckers who would be heavy users of the roads, shifted the burden of RhodeWorks to interstate truckers and in the process discriminated against interstate commerce.

That section of the law was severed and the core of RhodeWorks was allowed to proceed. An exemption for class 1-7 vehicles under RhodeWorks was not blocked by the courts. The ATA has aggressively fought the Rhode Island truck tolling system, which is the first truck-specific tolling plan in the nation.

The trade group said repeatedly it was concerned that the RhodeWorks program could become a model for truck-only tolls in other states. (1/2) News of the recent decision involving Rhode Island #trucking tolls can be found at link below.

But the reason @TRUCKINGdotORG fought so hard was encapsulated in a judicial footnote in the decision that rejected ATA's request for cost reimbursement.

John Kingston (@JohnHKingston) March 30, 2026 And even though it lost on the core goal of blocking truck-only tolls, the ATA, according to court documents, sought compensation for its costs and attorney’s fees because where it won–on the issue of caps–set an important precedent, according to its view.

“While ATA’s success is far from the sweeping rejection of the entirety of RhodeWorks that ATA sought in its complaint, I find that it still qualifies as a claim on which ATA is a…prevailing party,” Magistrate Sullivan wrote, because of the caps issu