Gallant v. Commonwealth, Department of Transportation

805 A.2d 1, 2002 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 533

• Court: Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: June 26, 2002
• Status: Published

Opinions

OPINION BY

Judge PELLEGRINI.

Steven A. Gallant, Jr. (Licensee) appeals from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Mercer County (trial court) dismissing his appeal and sustaining the one-year suspension of his driving privilege imposed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing (PennDot).

On October 23, 1999, Licensee was arrested in Cook County, Illinois and charged with Driving Under the Influence (DUI) of alcohol. On December 13, 1999, he was convicted of DUI and Illinois sent Pennsylvania a notice of the conviction. PennDot then sent Licensee an official notice stating that his operating privilege was being suspended for one year pursuant to 75 Pa.C.S. § 3731 (relating to driving under the influence of alcohol) and the Pennsylvania Driver License Compact (Compact),¹ 75 Pa.C.S. § 1581, as a result of his Illinois conviction.² Licensee appealed his suspension to the trial court.

At a de novo hearing, PennDot offered into evidence a packet of documents to establish the Illinois conviction. Among those documents was the Illinois report of conviction that had been electronically transmitted to PennDot, but on its face did not state that it came from Illinois licensing authority, the Secretary of State; only that it was from the State of Illinois or maybe Cook County Court. Licensee objected to its admission arguing that it was not properly certified from the Illinois licensing authority, but the trial court overruled his objection, noting that the document was from the State of Illinois and was also admissible under 75 Pa.C.S. § 1550(d) relating to out-of-state documentation in non-Compact situations. In addition to those documents, PennDot called Licensee to testify on cross-examination, again over his objection, which the trial court overruled, and Licensee testified that he had pled guilty to his DUI charge in Illinois and had been convicted of DUI on December IB, 1999. Relying on Licensee’s testimony alone, the trial court sustained the one-year suspension of his driving privilege. This appeal followed.³

Licensee contends that the trial court erred in sustaining the one-year suspension of his driving privilege because the document that PennDot offered into evidence from the State of Illinois was not from the state’s licensing authority as required by the Compact. In support of this contention, Licensee relies on this Court’s decision in Tripson v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 773 A.2d 195 (Pa.Cmwlth.2001), petition for allowance of appeal denied, 568 Pa. 690, 796 A.2d 320 (2002). In that case, PennDot received notice of Tripson’s conviction for DUI in West Virginia from a district magistrate court and not from the West Virginia licensing authority, and it relied on those documents to suspend his Pennsylvania driving privilege. On appeal, we held that Article III of the Compact required that the licensing authority of the reporting state in — that case, West Virginia — provide a report of conviction to PennDot, the home state’s licensing authority. Because the West Virginia documents were not from the state’s licensing authority, we reversed PennDot’s suspension of Tripson’s driving privilege.

PennDot, however, argues that the report of Licensee’s conviction did come from the Illinois licensing authority because it came from the Illinois Secretary of State. It further argues that the document was sufficient to support the suspension because it was electronically transmitted by the Illinois licensing authority, and then PennDot’s custodian of records, Rebecca L. Bickley, the Director of the Bureau of Driver Licensing, certified that it had been received by the Secretary of State from Illinois.

Initially, we note that in an appeal to the trial court from a suspension of a licensee’s operating privilege for a foreign conviction, pursuant to the Compact, PennDot has the burden of proving that the documents it received to support the suspension were received from the licensing authority of the foreign state. Boots v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 736 A.2d 64 (Pa.Cmwlth.), petition for allowance of appeal denied, 564 Pa. 722, 766 A.2d 1242 (1999). Article III of the Compact provides:

Reports of Conviction

The licensing authority of a party state shall report each conviction of a person from another party state occurring within its jurisdiction to the licensing authority of the home state of the licensee. Such report shall clearly identify the person convicted, describe the violation specifying the section of the statute, code or ordinance violated, identify the court in which action was taken, indicate whether a plea of guilty or not guilty was entered or the conviction was a result of the forfeiture of bail, bond or other security and shall include any special findings made in connection therewith. (Emphasis added.)

Under the Illinois Compiled Statutes Annotated, 625 ILCS 5/6-708(b), the Secretary of State is the licensing authority.⁴ After reviewing the document in question, we disagree with PennDot that the document it received was sent by the licensing authority of the State of Illinois. The heading of the document provides:

STATE OF ILLINOIS REPORT OF CONVICTION COOK — 3rd COUNTY COURT PHONE: 847-818-3000

Following that information is the name of Licensee, his address, sex, date of birth, the court case number, the court in which he was tried, his arrest date, his conviction date, his original offense, his guilty plea and the comment: out-of-state driver received supervision in IL. The bottom of the document provides control data and indicates that the document was computer generated and verified to the original source document. Nowhere does the document specify that it is from the Secretary of State, and it is unclear from the heading whether the document is from the State of Illinois or the State of Illinois 3rd County Court. “Despite argument to the contrary, reports of convictions submitted to the Department pursuant to the Compact must be received from the proper licensing authority of the reporting state. The Department may not certify that the documents are reports of convictions from other jurisdictions’ licensing authorities if the documents themselves contain no such certification from the reporting jurisdiction.” Tripson, 773 A.2d at 197. Just because PennDot certified that the document was from Illinois Secretary of State did not make it so without the proper certification from Illinois, and because it lacked the proper certification, it did not meet the requirement of Article III of the Compact. See also Boots.

Even if the document was not certified in accordance with the Compact, PennDot argues that because the document was certified by its Director of the Bureau of Driver Licensing that it was received by the Illinois Secretary of State, under 75 Pa.C.S. § 1550(d), that certification was prima facie evidence of the conviction creating a rebuttable presumption that the facts and information contained in the document were correct and shifted the burden to Licensee to present evidence to rebut the presumption. At oral argument, PennDot further argued that regardless of the document it receives, i.e., whether it contains any inkling of the authority of the sending state, if it determines that the document is sufficient to comport with the Compact, that is sufficient to prove an out-of-state conviction. 75 Pa.C.S. § 1550(d) provides:

(d) Out-of-State documentation. In any proceeding under this section [regarding judicial review of the suspension of operating privileges], documents received by the department from the courts or administrative bodies of other states or the Federal Government shall be admissible into evidence to support the department’s case.... In addition, if the department receives information from courts or administrative bodies of other states or the Federal Government by means of electronic transmission, it may certify that it has received the information by means of electronic transmission and that certification shall be prima facie proof of the adjudication and facts contained in such an electronic transmission. (Emphasis added.)

However, this identical argument was made in Boots, and in that case, we held that the more specific provision of Article III of the Compact regarding how out-of-state convictions were to be reported controlled over the more general provision of 75 Pa.C.S. § 1550(d). We explained:

We agree that § 1550(d)(1) states the general rale that such documents are admissible in statutory appeals. Section 1550(d)(1) provides that documents sent from any courts or administrative agencies of another state or federal government are admissible. However, 75 Pa. C.S. § 1581 [the Compact], Article III specifies from which agency documents must be sent in proceedings initiated under the Interstate Compact: “the licensing authority of a party state shall report each conviction of a person from another party state ...” (Emphasis added). Thus the more specific provision of 75 Pa.C.S. § 1581, which addresses proceedings initiated under the Compact as is the case here, controls over the more general provision of 75 Pa.C.S. § 1550(d)(1). See 1 Pa.C.S. § 1938 (“the special provision shall prevail and shall be construed as an exception to the general provision.”). (Emphasis in original.)

Boots, 736 A.2d at 66. Just because Penn-Dot certifies that a document comes from a licensing authority, even though there is no such indication on the document itself, that certification is insufficient to support that the document is what it is purported to be without the proper certification from the sending state. Without the proper certification, the entire document is in question, not just its contents. Moreover, by allowing PennDot to admit a document into evidence that does not meet the requirements under the Compact and giving it the presumption that it meets the requirements is to give it an unfair advantage over the licensee who must then prove that document is not what it purports to be.⁵

PennDot argues, though, that our Supreme Court’s decision in Department of Transportation v. McCafferty, 563 Pa. 146, 758 A.2d 1155 (2000), now controls. In that case, our Supreme Court held that even if a document from a reporting state lacked certain information that was specified in Article III, technical and immaterial defects in the report did not prevent Penn-Dot from relying on that information to support a suspension based on a conviction. However, McCajferty dealt with omissions contained in the certification of the licensee’s conviction sent by the licensing authority. In this case, we are unable to determine whether the licensing authority actually sent the document. Such a quandary is not just a technical and immaterial defect but essential for determining whether the document itself may be relied upon. Tripson. Therefore, McCajferty has no application to the facts of this case.

Even if the document was not properly certified under Article III of the Compact, PennDot argues that Licensee’s testimony that he was convicted for DUI in Illinois, coupled with the document, was sufficient to support a suspension. However, because the document faded to meet the requirements of Article III of the Compact and is not admissible under Section 75 Pa.C.S. § 1550(d), the question then is whether Licensee’s testimony alone was sufficient to support a suspension under the Compact. In Department of Transportation, Bureau of Traffic Safety v. Cox, 92 Pa.Cmwlth. 591, 499 A.2d 1140 (1985), where PennDot came to court without the official certification of a licensee’s conviction supporting his license suspension and it called the licensee on cross-examination to testify regarding his conviction, we held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it refused to allow PennDot to rely on the licensee’s testimony “to embark upon what would be an unsound practice — reliance upon the testimony of drivers to prove their own convictions, in place of the proper official certifications which are necessarily available in their own files.” Id. at 1141. We concluded that the best evidence of a conviction was the duly certified court record stating:

More than a century ago, in Buck v. Commonwealth, 107 Pa. 486 (1884), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held that a party cannot prove a conviction by putting the question to the allegedly convicted person upon cross-examination. “The proper mode of proving a conviction for ... any ... crime ... is the production of the record. It is the highest and best evidence.” 107 Pa. at 491.

Cox, 499 A.2d at 1141. See also Rhoads v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 153 Pa.Cmwlth. 155, 620 A.2d 659 (1993). Despite the fact that the purpose of the Compact is to promote compliance with each party state’s motor vehicle law, and Pennsylvania has a strong public policy to protect citizens from drunk drivers, PennDot must still provide certified documentation of a licensee’s conviction for DUI from the reporting state. If that documentation is not available or is deficient, PennDot cannot solely rely on the testimony of the licensee to meet its burden.⁶ Because PennDot, in this case, failed to provide such documentation to support Licensee’s conviction as required under the Compact, Licensee’s admission alone was insufficient to support a one-year suspension of his driving privilege.

Accordingly, the decision of the trial court is reversed and the one-year suspension of Licensee’s driving privilege is rescinded.

Judge SIMPSON dissents.

ORDER

AND NOW, this 26th day of June, 2002, the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Mercer County, dated August 23, 2001, is reversed.

1 . The Driver License Compact is an agreement among most of the states to promote compliance with each party state’s motor vehicle law. Pennsylvania became a party state to the Compact in 1996 by adopting Sections 1581-1585 of the Motor Vehicle Code. In order for PennDot to treat an out-of-state conviction as though it occurred in Pennsylvania, the out-of-state conviction must be from a state that has entered the Compact and enacted a statute to that effect. Illinois is a party state. See Leftheris v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 734 A.2d 455 (Pa.Cmwlth.1999); Ill.Rev.Stat. 1981, ch. 95’A, pars. 6-700 to 6-708.

2 . Specifically, the notice stated:

Section 1581 of the Vehicle Code requires the Department to treat certain out of state convictions as though they had occurred in Pennsylvania. Therefore, as a result of the Department receiving notification from ILLINOIS of your conviction on 12/13/1999 of an offense which occurred on 10/23/1999, which is equivalent to a violation of Section 3731 of the Pa. Vehicle Code, DRIVING UNDER INFLUENCE, your driving privilege is being SUSPENDED FOR A PERIOD OF 1 YEAR(S), as mandated by Section 1532B of the Vehicle Code.

3 . Our scope of review of the trial court’s decision dismissing Licensee's appeal is limited to determining whether its findings of fact were supported by competent evidence, whether it committed an error of law or whether it abused its discretion. Kline v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 725 A.2d 860 (Pa.Cmwlth.), petition for allowance of appeal denied, 560 Pa. 714, 743 A.2d 924 (1999).

4 . Illinois Compiled Statutes Annotated, 625 ILCS 5/6-708(b), provides:

As used in the compact, the term “licensing authority” with reference to this state, means the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State shall furnish to the appropriate authorities of any other party state any information or documents reasonably necessary to facilitate the administration of Sections 6-702, 6-703 and 6-704 of the compact [625 ILCS 5/6-702, 625 ILCS 5/6-703 and 625 ILCS 5/6-704],

5 . Additionally, because different states have various methods of reporting convictions, it is even more of a necessity that PennDot carefully ensure that each document it receives is from the licensing authority as required under the Act and not from an unknown entity.

6 . As we stated in Boots, "[w]e note that this requirement [of providing certified documentation from the reporting state] is not onerous in that the Department can always request the necessary information be sent from the licensing authority of party states.” 736 A.2d at 66.