Environmental and Fuel Surcharges Challenged in Class Action Lawsuit

An Alberta man says that a waste management company, GFL Environmental Inc., hit him and other consumers with unfair environmental and fuel surcharges.

Lead plaintiff, Lee Williams, asserts that GFL Environmental is slapping consumers with these surcharges for services that do not require fuel or environmental services. Williams claims that GFL’s system fails to differentiate between services that should be assessed these surcharges and ones that should not. Instead Lee claims the system blanketly charges the fees no matter what service the customer has purchased from the company.

Environmental and Fuel Surcharges Meant to Cover Specific Costs

According to the complaint, fuel surcharges are assessed by companies that use vehicles to provide their services. The surcharge helps the company cover the fluctuating costs of fuel. Similarly, companies often assess environmental surcharges to help cover the costs of recycling programs, shipping, storage, and depot operations, says the plaintiff.

The plaintiff says that he contracted with GFL for a dumpster bin rental in December of 2017. The rental agreement allegedly included a monthly fee for the bin and another charge for GFL to empty the bin, also called a lift. The plaintiff claims that when he first contracted with GFL, the company told him that fuel and environmental surcharges would apply only to the lift and not on months when he only rented the bin.

Williams says that he renewed the contract with GFL in 2018; however, he says that in March of 2019 he was reviewing his invoices and realized that he had been assessed fuel and environmental surcharges on the bin rental during the months when he had not had a lift.

GFL System Fails to Recognize Different Services

The plaintiff alleges that when he contacted GFL about the fuel and environmental surcharges, an analyst told him that he should not have been assessed those fees, but that their system simply charges the fees for all GFL services.

Williams says that he pursued the matter and then received information that contradicted the terms of his contract with GFL. According to the fuel and environmental surcharges class action lawsuit, a GFL sales manager told him that the environmental fee would be assessed on all services.

“The Defendant explained that the environmental charges would appear on every invoice as it is a charge based on volume of work and revenue from all services across Canada, which contradicts [GFL’s contract],” alleges the complaint.

Indeed, Williams says that GFL has refused to remove environmental surcharges from his dumpster bin rental. Further, the plaintiff alleges that, while the company agreed that he should not have been charged the fuel surcharge, only one month was credited.

Consumers Pay Incorrect Environmental and Fuel Fees

However, according to the class action lawsuit, many other consumers are paying environmental and fuel surcharges to GFL for services where they should not apply. Allegedly, GFL is assessing these charges due to accounting software that cannot recognize when they should or should not be applied.

“Regardless of whether there was a dumping fee on the customers invoices, they were charged amounts they should not have been charged due to the Defendants inadequate accounting software,” points out the complaint.

Then, claims the plaintiff, GFL is doubling down by refusing to admit that it should not be charging these fees on all of the services it provides. The environmental and fuel surcharges class action lawsuit points out that the environmental surcharge should be assessed in a different way, in particular.

“[T]he Defendant was charging environmental fees on the basis of the volume of work and revenue from all services across Canada, rather than based on fees incurred, and improperly shifted the burden of paying user fees onto those not responsible for them,” alleges the complaint.

The class action lawsuit seeks to represent a proposed class of Canadians hit with environmental and fuel surcharges not associated with a dumping fee.

Have you had to pay GFL environmental and fuel surcharges? What do you think of the class action lawsuit allegations? Tell us in the comment section below!

The lead plaintiff, Lee Williams, and proposed Class Members are represented by Clint Docken of Guardian Law Group LLP and Richard J. Mallett of James H. Brown & Associates.

The Environmental and Fuel Surcharges Class Action Lawsuit is Williams v. GFL Environmental Inc., Case No. 2003.06875, in the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta, Canada. 

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