A U.S. District Court judge has denied the City and Borough of Juneau\u2019s request to dismiss the complaint Cruise Lines International Association Alaska filed in April, alleging the city has misused marine passenger fees.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, Judge H. Russel Holland issued a written ruling in which he determined the city\u2019s motion for dismissal had a leg to stand on, so to speak. But in order to dismiss the case, it would\u2019ve needed more.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s motion for dismissal hinged on the Tax Injunction Act, a federal law that prohibits U.S. District Courts from enjoining or otherwise stopping the collection of \u201cany tax under state law where a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the courts of such state,\u201d the law reads.<\/p>\n
Every cruise ship passenger who comes through Juneau has to pay a $5 marine passenger fee and $3 port development fee. CLIAA argues that the city has misused the revenue these fees generated by building a $10 million man-made island incorporated in the downtown seawalk.<\/p>\n
Juneau attorney Robert Blasco, who is representing the city in the ongoing suit, argued that CLIAA\u2019s council treated the fees as if they were a tax in their complaint.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t agree that that\u2019s a correct factual statement, but if that\u2019s what they\u2019re saying, this court doesn\u2019t have jurisdiction,\u201d Juneau City Attorney Amy Mead told the Empire Monday, explaining the motion for dismissal.<\/p>\n
In order to determine whether the entry fees Juneau charges cruise ship passengers are legal taxes, or (as their name implies) fees, Judge Holland had to apply the Bidart Test, a legal test consisting of three criteria.<\/p>\n
In order to be considered a tax, a charge must meet at least two of the test\u2019s three requirements. It must be administered by a legislative governing body. It must be imposed on a broad class of parties. And\/or it must be used for general purposes, not to subsidize specific projects.<\/p>\n
In this case, \u201cit all boiled down to the third prong of that test,\u201d Mead said.<\/p>\n
In the motion for dismissal, Blasco argued that the cruise passenger entry fees \u2014 as described by CLIAA in its complaint \u2014 met all of Bidart Test\u2019s criteria. Judge Holland found that the entry fees only met the first. <\/p>\n
Now that the motion for dismal has been denied, Mead said the trial will proceed at a quicker pace. Though the city is prepared to defend itself, Mead said it would rather have done so in state court and not federal court, which explains the motion for dismissal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end, the judge said that this case should stay in federal court,\u201d Mead said. \u201cWe weren\u2019t sure how that was going to go one way or the other, but we believe this is a matter of local import and that the case should have been heard at a local level \u2014 in state court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neither Blasco nor Herbert H. Ray Jr., an attorney for CLIAA, responded to Empire queries by press time Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Sam DeGrave at 523-2279 or sam.degrave@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A U.S. District Court judge has denied the City and Borough of Juneau\u2019s request to dismiss the complaint Cruise Lines International Association Alaska filed in April, alleging the city has misused marine passenger fees. On Thursday, Judge H. Russel Holland issued a written ruling in which he determined the city\u2019s motion for dismissal had a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":5137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-5136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5136"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=5136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}