U.S. appeals court denies Morouns' bid to revisit Detroit River bridge agreement

WASHINGTON – The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday denied a request to revisit a case in which the owners of Detroit’s Ambassador Bridge tried to block an agreement between Michigan and Canada to build a rival span nearby, leaving the U.S. Supreme Court as the only avenue of appeal left.

Lawyers for Manuel (Matty) Moroun and his family, who own and operate the Ambassador Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, had requested the entire appellate court reconsider a decision by a three-judge panel in November denying their claims to stop the Gordie Howe Bridge from being built two miles away on the Detroit River.

Having filed initial claims in the case eight years ago in an attempt to build their own second span and later to block the rival bridge, the Moroun family argued the government improperly stalled permits for its own efforts while illegally entering or signing off on deals with Canada for the Gordie Howe Bridge.

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The Moroun family has said that the new bridge will take much of its freight traffic and make it virtually impossible for it to afford to upgrade and replace the historic bridge over the Detroit River, which is one of the busiest trade corridors in North America.

The court in November rejected claims that in passing a law allowing the Ambassador Bridge to be built in 1929, Congress effectively gave the owners an exclusive franchise to border traffic in perpetuity. It also denied arguments that Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder overstepped his authority by allowing the state to enter into an agreement permitting Canada to build and pay for the new bridge.

The U.S. secretary of state signed off on the construction of the new bridge in 2013, issuing what is known as a presidential permit allowing the new span. In the decision rejecting the claims from the Moroun-controlled Detroit International Bridge Co., the judges held that the company “has pointed to nothing to show that Congress intended the Ambassador Bridge to be perpetually profitable for its owners."

Tuesday’s denial of a request for a second hearing was without comment by the court. It effectively means that in order to continue pursuing the case, the bridge company would have to petition the U.S. Supreme Court, which accepts only a handful of cases for argument each term and then typically only those in which key questions of federal law require interpretation.

There was no immediate word from the bridge company on whether it will petition to have the case heard by the Supreme Court.

Contact Todd Spangler at 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @tsspangler.

