Horry County, South Carolina Road Maintenance Fees Are Unlawful, Class Action Contends

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In the wake of a recent state supreme court decision, a proposed class action looks to recover monetary damages stemming from allegedly unlawful road maintenance fees charged and collected by South Carolina’s Horry County and its council.

The 14-page lawsuit stresses that road maintenance fees, which are assessed annually on every motor vehicle registered in Horry County, were declared unlawful in Greenville County earlier this year by the South Carolina Supreme Court, who in late June struck down a pair of measures looking to increase the tax and establish an annual “telecommunications assessment.” The plaintiffs allege Horry County residents’ substantive due process rights have been violated by the assessment and collection of the road maintenance fees, which total $50 per vehicle registered in the county, the suit says. 

According to the complaint, Horry County generates roughly $17 million per year in road maintenance fees, which, more specifically, appear in county residents’ property tax bills for each registered and taxed vehicle. Although Horry County and its council contend that the road maintenance fees amount to lawful service fees, the South Carolina Supreme Court, in a similar case over road maintenance fees in Greenville County, ruled the charges are unlawful there in that they fail to meet the requirements of a “service fee” under state law, the lawsuit says. 

Despite the South Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling, Horry County “intend[s] to disregard the holding and continue charging the unlawful Road Fees,” the complaint claims, noting the defendants’ argument that they were approved to assess the charges in a 1992 state supreme court ruling. 

“We were approved by the supreme court back in 92 to do this and we’ve been doing it all along and we feel like if it was legal then, it should be legal now,” Horry County Councilman Johnny Vaught told WPDE. “We feel very confident in our original supreme court making it legal for us and every county in South Carolina does it. We feel we’re doing it fairly and according to what the law was.”

Based upon these public statements, the complaint says, the defendants have no intention to refund those who’ve had to pay road maintenance fees collected during any fiscal year. According to WPDE, Horry County officials, in “an abundance of caution,” approved an amendment to the fiscal budget to hold road maintenance fees in an escrow account given the uncertainty created by the South Carolina Supreme Court’s ruling on Greenville County’s fees. 

The suit claims Horry County’s road maintenance fees are not a service or user fee in that they do not “benefit[] the payer in some manner different from the members of the general public” who do not pay the fee. 

“Every driver on any road in the County, regardless of whether the vehicle is registered in the County or in another county or state, benefits from the fact that the Road Fee revenues are allocated for road maintenance and improvement,” the lawsuit asserts. 

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