Bridge toll penalty fees do not violate the Eighth Amendment

No one likes paying highway or bridge tolls but these fees are a fact of life so the government can maintain the roads and bridges. The plaintiffs in this case sued the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, claiming that its fines for unpaid tolls violate the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against excessive fines. The plaintiffs lose.

The case is Reese v. Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, issued on January 26. The fines can be as high as $100 for each unpaid toll. One plaintiff had 41 toll violations and was hit with fines totaling $4,000 even though the underlying tolls amounted to only $381.50. Another plaintiff had $1,000 in fees for 10 toll violations, but the underlying tolls were for $85. A third plaintiff had 439 violations in more than two years and was fined $43,550 for $3,810 in unpaid tolls. You get the picture. They claim the fines are unconstitutionally excessive. The Court of Appeals (Lohier and Lynch) finds for the agency.

The Eighth Amendment is silent as to how courts should enforce it. The Supreme Court adopted a test in United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321 (1988) that lays out four factors:

(1) the essence of the crime of the defendant and its relation to other criminal activity, (2) whether the defendant fits into the class of persons for whom the statute was principally designed, (3) the maximum sentence and fine that could have been imposed, and (4) the nature of the harm caused by the defendant's conduct.

Plaintiffs lose because (1) plaintiffs' violates stemmed from their failure to pay attention to the fine-payment process and fines are OK under the Eighth Amendment even for strict liability offenses, (2) plaintiffs' fines fell below the maximum amount that could have been assessed by the agency, and (3) the harm caused by plaintiffs' failure to pay the fines were not minimal to nonexistent, undercutting their argument that the fines were disproportionate to the offense. In fact, the harm to TBTA is minimized precisely because of the fines that plaintiffs challenge in this case. Without the fees, the fiscal harm to the agency would be substantial, and it would be difficult for the TBTA to collect tolls without deterring potential toll-violators.