When the Government finally agreed not to compel the 1137 people who were the subject of our court challenge to complete the Responsible Driver Program and get an Interlock, they also said that they would reimburse those people for the money they’d paid toward those programs. We’re now bringing a court challenge to ensure nobody else is forced to go through these programs unless it can be justified on the basis of their driving record. We think that we’ll succeed (or we wouldn’t do it) but the big question is whether you’ll be getting your money back for the Interlock and RDP if you’ve already paid for these programs.
Each time this topic comes up the first question the reporters ask is whether there will be a class action. We have not been enthusiastic supporters of class-action lawsuits regarding Immediate Roadside Prohibitions. We figured there were at least five reasons why the class action suit for the potentially wrong Warn tests would not go ahead. Our main concern was establishing that each individual happened to have a blood alcohol content of .040 to .049 and not higher.
If you blew a Warn from September 20, 2010 to November 19, 2010, and you pinned your hopes on a class-action suit, then we’re sorry to let you know that the Court ruled against it going ahead as a class action. The Court’s ruling is more or less what we expected. This is the reason that we didn’t get behind it.
As for getting your money back for the Interlock and RDP, if we are successful in our challenge, we think that the Government will have little choice but to reimburse people as they claim they are doing for the 1137. Further lawsuits may not be necessary.
If you received one 90-day IRP and were then forced to go through the RDP and install an Interlock, despite the fact that your driving record would not justify this, then it’s possible that the Government will acknowledge their mistake, like they did with the last group, and start paying back the money.
Of course, we’ll all believe it when we see it.