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A lawsuit that alleges hundreds or even thousands of drunken-driving cases initiated by former Utah Highway Patrol trooper Lisa Steed were based on false statements and unconstitutional practices will not be a class-action suit, a judge has ruled.
Second District Judge Michael Allphin said Thursday that an analysis of whether there was reasonable suspicion and probable cause for a traffic stop must be based on the unique facts and circumstances of each of the DUI cases, "which cannot be achieved through generalized proof."
The judge pointed out that the traffic stops and arrests of the proposed class members varied greatly, occurring over several years, at various locations, at different times of day and for different reasons.
The proposed class action against UHP and Steed was filed in December 2012 by three Utahns who claim they were arrested by Steed and prosecuted for alleged DUI violations even though tests on each were either negative for drugs, metabolites and alcohol, or showed levels of those substances that were within legal limits.
The suit claims the traffic stops were illegally expanded into DUI investigations by false claims of signs of impairment and that field sobriety tests were administered without reasonable suspicion.
The suit is seeking monetary damages and an injunction barring enforcement of the alleged unconstitutional policies. In addition, the plaintiffs are asking that wrongful convictions based on false statements by Steed or other troopers be overturned.
Steed, who was named "Trooper of the Year" in 2007, was fired by the UHP in 2012 after two judges found she had lied in court. Those findings raised questions about her actions in many of the estimated DUI arrests she had made since being hired in 2002.
Robert Sykes, the plaintiffs' attorney, said he plans to appeal the ruling. The statute of limitations for most of the proposed class members to file their own lawsuit has passed, he said, leaving them with no remedy.
"We think that the entire case is based upon the wide-scale fraud and falsification of records by Lisa Steed and that's the common factor," Sykes said.
Lawyers for the highway patrol and Steed have denied the suit's allegations. The defendants opposed the class action certification.
Assistant Utah Attorney General Meb Anderson, who represents Steed, said his client is happy with the decision.
"We believed all along that the law supported our position that a class cannot be certified when each arrest has to be examined separately," Anderson said in a news release. "After reviewing the hundreds of pages of argument, and after hearing argument for over an hour, the court agreed with us."
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