Appeals Granted

Case

VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION v. DANNY MEEKS, ET AL.
(Record Number 130955)

From

The Circuit Court of the City of Portsmouth; J. Cales, Jr., Judge.

Counsel

Kenneth T. Cucinelli, II, Patricia L. West, E. Duncan Getchell, Jr., Michael H. Brady (Office of the Attorney General) and George A. Somerville and Timothy J. St. George (Troutman Sanders LLP) for appellants.

Patrick M. McSweeney, Christopher I. Kachouroff (Dominion Law Center, P.C.) and Robert J. Cynkar (Cuneo, Gilbert & LaDuca, LLP) for appellees.

Assignments of Error

1. The Circuit Court erred in finding the tolls to be taxes under the facts and legal principles applicable to this case because they are in contemplation of law tolls and user fees.
2. The Circuit Court erred in finding under the facts and legal principles applicable to this case that the taxing power of the General Assembly has been illegally delegated in violation of Article IV, § 1 of the Constitution of Virginia.
3. The Circuit Court erred in finding under the facts and legal principles applicable to this case that the tolling authority conferred by the PPTA and CA violates Article IV, § 1 of the Constitution of Virginia for lack of adequate standards.
4. The Circuit Court erred in denying a stay pending appeal because the applicable standards justifying such a stay tips decisively in favor of the defendants.

Assignments of Cross-Error

1. The Circuit Court erred by not granting summary judgment to Appellees on Counts 1 and 2 on the alternative ground that exacting a rate of return on private investment - at levels agreed to by VDOT and ERCO - through tolls imposed on users of the Downtown Tunnel/Midtown Tunnel/Martin Luther King Expressway Extension Project is an exclusively legislative function that was unconstitutionally exercised by, or unconstitutionally delegated to, VDOT.
2. The Circuit Court erred by not granting summary judgment to Appellees on Counts 1 and 2 on the alternative ground that the contract by which VDOT commits to ERCO the power to exact tolls for the use of public facilities - which tolls include a return on the ERCO's investment - for as long as 58 years unconstitutionally abridges the police power of the General Assembly and the sovereignty of the Commonwealth.

Date Revised
   07-09-2013 to include Assignments of Cross-Error

Date Granted

  6-20-2013