Zolin

American President Lines, Ltd. (APL), paid over $4.2 million in additional fees assessed by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), for registering its fleet of truck trailers during 1989-1991. This appeal and related writ petition question the DMV’s determination of those fees and place under scmtiny the procedures for challenging them. We conclude the DMV wrongly assessed additional fees for the years 1989 and 1990, which were covered by a special agreement between the DMV and APL and wrongly computed the fees for 1991, which was outside the special agreement. We affirm the judgment in most respects. We uphold APL’s entitlement to prejudgment interest, but we vacate the superior court’s determination that APL was entitled to attorney fees.

We also explain why APL was correct in following the administrative mandamus procedures which led to this appeal. We issue a writ of mandate to compel the superior court to terminate a parallel tax refund action instituted by APL at the DMV’s insistence.

I. Facts and Procedures

The central issue in this case is the meaning of an agreement entered into by APL and the DMV. To place the agreement in context, we first explain the…