E-ZPass scam violation lawsuit: Could you get a check?

Some things never seem to change in New Jersey.

Garden State residents continue to complain about high property taxes, our sky-high cost of living and getting ripped off by E-ZPass.

As New Jersey drivers continue to protest the way the electronic toll collection system operates, and the fines that are handed out to motorists, attorney Matthew Faranda-Diedrich, a partner at Royer Cooper Cohen Braunfeld, said final oral arguments and a verdict in the class action lawsuit case filed against the Turnpike Authority could come early in 2023.

The lawsuit against E-ZPass fines

He said the main point of the suit being considered by a three-judge Appellate Court panel is simple.

“The actual cost of processing and collecting the toll violation is a small fraction of the $50 that’s currently being collected," he said.

Faranda-Diedrich said you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to calculate that the current fine handed out is inflated.

“We believe that the actual cost to the Turnpike to collect the toll violation is just a dollar or two and not the $50 that was claimed.”

He said the lawsuit seeks recovery “of all of the sums that have been collected by the Turnpike at the $50 charge level, to be returned to the motorists who paid those charges.”

The Turnpike Authority, however, has insisted that the cost of a toll needs to take into account the cost of the infrastructure needed to identify violators and then collect the unpaid tolls. The lawsuit has disputed those calculations.

️ Millions of violations

When asked how many E-ZPass violation fines could be affected by a successful ruling in the case, he said millions.

“Our intent,” said Faranda-Diedrich, “would be to have each one of those motorists who paid a $50 charge be refunded an amount in excess of what it costs the Turnpike to collect the toll.”

He pointed out it is not too late to join the class-action suit, and you can learn how to sign up here.

He said he believes the class-action suit will be successful.

“It takes time, it takes energy, it doesn’t happen exactly when or in the way in which we had hoped it would, but we remain confident that the truth will ultimately carry the day,” he said. “And that truth is that it costs a tiny fraction of the charged $50 in order to collect and process the toll violation.”

David Matthau is a reporter for New Jersey 101.5. You can reach him at david.matthau@townsquaremedia.com

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