Collins v. Director of Revenue

691 S.W.2d 246, 1985 Mo. LEXIS 257
CourtSupreme Court of Missouri
DecidedMay 29, 1985
Docket66788, 66790
StatusPublished
Cited by157 cases

This text of 691 S.W.2d 246 (Collins v. Director of Revenue) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Collins v. Director of Revenue, 691 S.W.2d 246, 1985 Mo. LEXIS 257 (Mo. 1985).

Opinions

GUNN, Judge.

This is a consolidated appeal of two individuals, each arrested for driving while intoxicated and served with notice of license suspension, pursuant to § 302.520, RSMo Cum.Supp.1983. Both suspensions were upheld in subsequent administrative hearings and trials de novo in circuit court. We accepted transfer from the Western District Court of Appeals and have consolidated the two cases to facilitate the resolution of the issues which raise constitutional challenges to the license suspension procedures set forth in §§ 302.500-.540, RSMo Cum.Supp.1983.1

We affirm the suspensions.

Both appellants assert that the statutory scheme for the summary suspension of driving privileges is violative of the equal protection clauses of the constitutions of the United States and Missouri,2 in that the procedure applies only to persons arrested for state offenses and only to those intoxicated persons found to have a blood alcohol content (BAC) of thirteen-hundredths of one percent or greater (.13 percent).

Appellants also present several evidentia-ry matters. They contend that the state failed to prove that the arresting officers had probable cause to believe that appellants possessed a BAC of at least .13 percent at the time of the arrest, as allegedly required by § 302.505. And they assert that there was no sufficient foundation for the breathalyzer examination test results. They also argue that the state failed to present any evidence that the appellants were adequately informed of their rights to refuse the breathalyzer examination and of the attendant consequences of their refusal or submission.

Individually, appellant Collins submits that he was denied his right of discovery when the trial court refused to grant a continuance. Appellant Johnson claims that she was denied her right of cross-examination at her administrative hearing when the hearing officer merely took judicial notice of the agency case file and heard no testimony. She also contends that the evidence contained in the agency case file consisted of closed records which were inadmissible.

I.

Appellants first challenge the constitutionality of §§ 302.500-.540 on an equal protection basis. They assert that the summary suspension procedure outlined in these statutes arbitrarily singles out persons arrested for violating state drunk driving laws because violators of comparable county and municipal ordinances are [250]*250not subject to automatic suspension of their licenses. They also contend that the separate classification for persons with a BAC of .13 percent or greater is arbitrary and capricious in view of the legislative presumption that persons with a BAC of at least .10 percent are intoxicated.3

When a law or a series of statutes is assailed as unconstitutional, the initial inquiry is the proper standard of review. Appellants do not urge that the challenged statutes infringe upon fundamental rights or create a suspect classification. Accordingly, to determine whether the statutory classification set forth in §§ 302.500-.540 violates the strictures of the equal protection clauses, we need only examine whether the statutes bear any rational relationship to a legitimate state interest. State Board of Registration for the Healing Arts v. Giffen, 651 S.W.2d 475, 480 (Mo. banc 1983). Moreover, appellants carry the burden of demonstrating that the law does not rest upon any reasonable basis but is essentially arbitrary. Lindsley v. Natural Carbonic Gas Co., 220 U.S. 61, 78-79, 31 S.Ct. 337, 340-341 55 L.Ed. 396 (1911); State v. Mitchell, 563 S.W.2d 18, 23 (Mo. banc 1978). And if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived which would sustain the laws in question, that state of facts is assumed. Id.

Appellants do not deny that the challenged statutes have a legitimate state interest, in that the laws are designed to prevent the slaughter on our highways which might occur if intoxicated persons were permitted to drive. They urge, however, that because not all intoxicated drivers are subject to expedited review and administrative suspension of their licenses, the statutory classification is not rationally related to this state objective. We note that there is no constitutional mandate that every law reach every classification to which it might apply. “[A] legislature need not ‘strike at all evils at the same time’ ... and ‘reform may take one step at a time, addressing itself to the phase of the problem which seems most acute to the legislative mind.’ ” Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 656-57, 86 S.Ct. 1717, 1726-27, 16 L.Ed.2d 828 (1966) (quoting Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483, 489, 75 S.Ct. 461, 465, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955)).

Potential harm exists whether the intoxicated driver possesses a BAC of .10 percent or .13 percent, even though BAC affects different people in different ways. It is also clear that the proportion of people whose driving ability is impaired and the extent of that impairment rises with increasing blood-alcohol levels. Gray, Attorney’s Textbook of Medicine, 3d ed., ¶ 133.-52(4) (1969). Thus, there exists some “reasonable basis” for the legislative classification; and though the classification may be arguably imperfect, it does not constitute an impermissible denial of equal protection. Crane v. Riehn, 568 S.W.2d 525, 530 (Mo. banc 1978).

Likewise, appellants have failed to demonstrate that the challenged statutes are unconstitutional because they differentiate between state law offenders and violators of local ordinances. We do not sit as a “super legislature” to rule on the wisdom of this and other legislative determinations which result in disparate treatment but do not affect fundamental rights. New Orleans v. Dukes, 427 U.S. 297, 303, 96 S.Ct. 2513, 2516, 49 L.Ed.2d 511 (1976); American Motorcyclist Association v. City of St. Louis, 622 S.W.2d 267, 270 (Mo.App.1981). It is sufficient that the legislative distinction is not clearly arbitrary and unreasonable. State v. Ewing, 518 S.W.2d 643, 646 (Mo.1975). It is not unreasonable in this instance.

II.

The first of the appellants’ evidentiary contentions of error requires the Court to [251]*251construe § 302.505.1. That provision reads as follows:

The department shall suspend the license of any person upon its determination that the person was arrested upon probable cause to believe he was driving a motor vehicle while the alcohol concentration in the person’s blood or breath was thirteen-hundredths of one percent or more by weight of alcohol in his blood, based on the definition of alcohol concentration in section 302.500.

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Bluebook (online)
691 S.W.2d 246, 1985 Mo. LEXIS 257, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/collins-v-director-of-revenue-mo-1985.