Lawsuit claims expiring ferry tickets violate state law

For people who regularly ride Washington State Ferries, buying tickets in bulk ahead of time is often the best bet because they’re discounted about 20 percent.

But prepaid Wave2Go tickets expire after 90 days.

“You pay this large quantity of money and you expect to use all the rides but sometimes you don’t. But you will, especially living on the island,” said Lila Jones, who grew up on Bainbridge Island.

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She knows passengers don’t get a refund on rides they don’t use.

“I’ve known family friends to make copies of their pass and divide it up between three plus (or) more families just because people can’t get through the pass in the amount of time they’re allowing before it expires,” Jones said.

Attorney Jason Dennett of Tousley Brain Stephens is suing the state on behalf of a Vashon Island resident, KIRO 7 reports.

He hopes to make it a class-action lawsuit by claiming a violation of the state law against expiring gift cards.

“It’s called the gift certificate act, but it really applies to every stored value card,” said Dennett, who says that includes ferry tickets.

The state says ferry tickets have had expiration dates since the 1980s.

“As far as I know, this is the first time this has been brought against the ferry system,” Dennett said.

But state officials pointed KIRO 7 to a similar 2010 lawsuit that was later dismissed.

They say Washington law explicitly differentiates between gift cards and fare cards like Wave2Go.

Washington State Ferries says the multi-ride fares are meant to benefit regular riders.

If there were no expiration dates, officials say, everyone would buy them at the discount, and there wouldn’t be enough money to keep the system going.