Ambassador Bridge company not "federal instrumentality" - US Judge

A US District Court judge in Detroit today ruled what seems perfectly obvious to most sane people - that the Ambassador Bridge company is not a US Government agency. That such an issue went to court at all is a reminder that no legal proposition is too bizarre to be thrown into a court in the long running battle over a new bridge over the Detroit River between the US and Canada.

US Judge Robert H Cleland today granted summary judgment in favor of Commodity Export Company, a building owner near the budge, the City of Detroit, the United States of America and others that the Detroit International Bridge Company owner of the Ambassador Bridge "is not a federal instrumentality" and to "enjoin DIBC from claiming such status…"

The judge said that DIBC had regularly resorted to "a self-claimed status of 'federal instrumentality' and the immunity from local and state regulation that such status implies."

Commodity Export Company the principal plaintiff complained that contractors of the bridge company illegally removed local roads last November (parts of 23rd and W Lafayette streets) rendering their building landlocked and isolated from customers and police and fire protection.

A Michigan trial court had ruled in 2008 that the bridge company WAS a federal instrumentality, preventing the City of Detroit from enforcing its ordinances over the bridge company, and expelling it from city park.

Judicial circus

In a judicial circus - in which conspiracy theories were peddled that the company "bought" judges - the Michigan Court of Appeals reversed the trial court finding, but the Michigan Supreme Court then confused the issue further by reversing, or semi-reversing in finding DIBC “is a federal instrumentality for the limited purpose of facilitating traffic over the Ambassador Bridge and, as such, is immune from the zoning regulation of the city of Detroit that would preclude construction projects furthering this limited federal purpose."

Misappropriation of federal status alleged by US

The US Government intervened in this case in US Court claiming "Misappropriation of Federal Status" against the bridge company.

They asked the court:

"Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §2201, Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 57, and this Court’s inherent authority, the United States hereby requests enforcement of federal law through a declaration by the Court that DIBC is not a federal instrumentality or limited federal instrumentality or any type of appendage of the federal government.

"Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §2202 and this Court’s inherent authority, the United States hereby requests that the Court permanently enjoin DIBC and its corporate affiliates from misappropriating the status of 'federal instrumentality,' and to cease and desist from misrepresenting that it is any kind of federal instrumentality or other arm or agent of the federal government, in state court, federal court, or elsewhere."

Amazingly Bridge company lawyers filed materials undermining their own case

Judge Cleland found that the only evidence offered by the bridge company supported - you read that right, supported - the view that it was NOT a federal instrumentality, and so he ruled that it was not.

The ruling apparently opens the way for state orders to be enforced for removal of unapproved construction by the bridge company.  And for the city to reclaim parkland the bridge company has taken.

BACKGROUND & COMMENT: both sides in the long-running dispute over a new crossing of the Detroit River are totally unreasonable. The Ambassador Bridge company has by far the better plan - twinning the existing bridge - but acts as though it can implement that plan regardless of laws, contracts and permits.

It has seized city roads and parkland in violation of city and private property rights, and built segments of the Gateway toll and inspection plaza quite differently from provided for in an agreement it signed with the state.

The state for its part has been desultory in enforcing the law and reckless in promoting a quite unneeded and extravagant new crossing downriver (called DRIC) that needs billions of dollars for additional interchanges, new approach roads and duplicate toll and inspection plazas.

The state government still doesn't have legislative power to implement the new DRIC bridge.  

The state lower house has passed the needed legislation, but the state senate has so far withheld approval - on the sensible grounds that the downriver plan is non-viable financially and will only be built on billions more of unserviceable state debt. This for a state government in such a parlous financial situation it cannot go on its own to the capital markets, and has said it needs loans from the government of Canada for a new interchange with I-75 and approach roads and plazas.

Traffic across the Michigan-Ontario border has been up and down for more than ten years around a no-growth trend line. Plans for the new bridge are based on a happy theory that a decade or more of economic funk will suddenly be shaken off and sustained and substantial growth of the post NAFTA years will somehow break out all over again.

With the Blue Water Bridge (6 lanes) to the north catering well to heavy trucks and tourist traffic Chicago-Toronto/Montreal and the Detroit Windsor Tunnel (2 lanes) providing local Detroit-Windsor car service, there is plenty of capacity for the forseeable future with the 4-lane Ambassador Bridge. The proposed new span alongside the Ambassador will provide a guaranteed 14 lanes (18 in a pinch using the old span too) more than enough redundancy and capacity - all at a fraction of the cost of the separate downriver DRIC bridge.

The solution? Put the lawless buccaneers of the Ambassador Bridge company in jail, force the bridge to be sold off to law-abiding investors who would build the twin span, while abandoning plans for the white elephant DRIC bridge downriver. Perhaps jail is the wrong place these days for someone in the private sector wanting to be known as a federal instrumentality. A more suitable place of confinement would be what used to be called robustly a lunatic asylum, these more sensitive days, a psychiatric institution - editor.

copy of Court ruling:

http://www.tollroadsnews.com/sites/default/files/DRIC-USctRules.pdf

TOLLROADSnews 2010-06-29 REVISIONS/ADDITIONS 2010-06-30 12:00