Ohio to refund some disabled veterans license plate fees after Army vet sues
About 2,000 disabled veterans will get refunds for "erroneous" license plate charges, according to the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles.
“The BMV deeply regrets this error,” BMV spokesman Charlie Norman said in a statement. “We are undertaking an internal review to determine why the legislative change wasn’t adopted in a timely manner to ensure that this will not happen in the future.”
The agency announced the $60 refunds Thursday, but a lawsuit filed on March 17 alleges the bureau has been aware of this oversight for nearly two years.
"They didn’t do it because they care about disabled veterans," Cleveland Attorney Marc Dann said. "They did it because we sued them."
Dann is the former Democratic attorney general of Ohio.
The lawsuit and subsequent refunds stem from a 2019 change by Ohio's legislature that expanded the kinds of free license plates certain disabled veterans could receive from those labeled disabled to all military license plates except personalized plates.
The only qualification for the free plates was a declaration of 100% service-related disability by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. But an Army veteran named Jack Kacin alleges in the lawsuit that his local BMV made him pay for regular military plates in May 2021.
"Defendant’s Deputy Registrar insisted that the only license plate available to him without charge was a 'Disabled Veteran' plate," according to the lawsuit. "For obvious reasons, many veterans may not prefer to publicly disclose that they are 100% disabled in this manner."
Kacin returned to his local BMV in May 2022 and was "again told that his request could not and would not be permitted."
"We have tons of emails he sent to the BMV," Dann said. "He really tried to resolve this on his own."
More: You may get money back if you were 'wrongly' charged fee on your Ohio driver's license
This isn't the first lawsuit Dann has brought against Ohio's BMV.
He's also the attorney in a class action lawsuit to refund a $1.50 fee plus interest to Ohioans who paid lamination fees after the state stopped laminating driver's licenses.
The fee was later renamed a "document authentication fee" and covers additional costs to produce federally compliant licenses like verifying additional documents and scanning.
"The verbiage was never updated to reflect changes in technology," a BMV spokesperson said at the time.
But Dann said that doesn't mean the BMV gets to keep the lamination fees the BMV collected for two years. The lawsuit estimated about 2 million Ohioans were charged more than $3 million in improper fees.
And if you qualify, you've been automatically added to the class. Ohioans who want to opt-out have until Nov. 6, 2023, according to the BMV.
Those who remain in the class cannot bring their own lawsuits and will be bound by this case's ruling. You can opt-out by filling out a form at www.OhioLaminationFeesLitigation.com.
The trial is set for Dec. 11, 2023.
Anna Staver is a reporter for the USA TODAY Network Ohio Bureau, which serves the Columbus Dispatch, Cincinnati Enquirer, Akron Beacon Journal and 18 other affiliated news organizations across Ohio.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio BMV to refund improperly charged fees for disabled veteran plates
