Lawsuit alleging Republic Services 'misrepresented' dumpster sizes is dismissed

A lawsuit alleging that Republic Service’s dumpsters were “substantially smaller” than the company claimed has been dismissed by a federal judge.

A man named Max Bauer, who was once a general manager and municipal manager for Republic, and his son Eric Bauer, a former driver for Republic, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court, District of Montana Missoula Division, in December of 2024.

They were attempting to “recover damages and civil penalties on behalf of the United States of America and Montana arising from false and fraudulent statements and false and fraudulent claims made and submitted by Republic ... because Republic provided materially incorrect descriptions of the garbage and recycling collection products and services that it provided and billed for, and which the federal and state governments paid for.”

Essentially, the duo alleged that Republic was liable under both the U.S. and Montana False Claims Acts.

In the lawsuit, Max Bauer noted that he was a general manager of BFI, which would later become Republic Services, in the early 1990s.

Bauer alleged that the company’s new trucks were breaking the containers, so the company decided to buy different containers from a Seattle company. The only problem was that the old containers held three cubic yards, while the new ones only held between 2.5 and 2.7 cubic yards. The company still advertised to customers that the containers held 3 cubic yards. To make up the difference, the company began allowing customers to “overload” the containers, meaning that the lids wouldn’t shut all the way, and they would still be emptied.

But in 2018, the Bauers alleged, Republic began systematically, and as a matter of policy, charging “overage fees” of $25 whenever a customer had a certain amount of garbage piled over the top plane of the dumpsters. Max Bauer had retired from Republic Services by that time.

The Bauers also alleged that drivers got a bonus of $1.25 for each overage charge they noted. The Bauers, in their lawsuit, called this a “bounty.”

The Bauers alleged that University of Montana was charged $5,000 in overage fees in a year just for the Adams Center location service.

The lawsuit also alleged that Republic had about 2,440 dumpsters in Missoula County labeled as holding three cubic yards, but about 1,700 of those were actually 2.52 cubic yards.

But Republic Services moved to dismiss the case, saying the lawsuit failed to identify violations of the Montana False Claims Act and the federal False Claims Act.

One of the lawsuit’s main claims was that the public didn’t know about the dumpster sizes, but Republic Services claimed that it notified the public about the dumpster sizes during a Montana Public Service Commission hearing.

On May 11 of this year, federal Magistrate Judge Kathleen DeSoto granted Republic Services’ motion to dismiss the case.

She gave a lengthy, 30-page summary of her legal findings in the case.

“(The Bauers’) argument that any disclosures made on the PSC public docket are excepted from the Montana False Claims Act’s definition of a 'public disclosure' fails,” DeSoto concluded in her order.

Republic Services did not respond to a request for comment for this story.