McKinney v. O'Malley

379 F. Supp. 135, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7272
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Florida
DecidedAugust 6, 1974
DocketNo. 73-57-Civ-J-T
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 379 F. Supp. 135 (McKinney v. O'Malley) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McKinney v. O'Malley, 379 F. Supp. 135, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7272 (M.D. Fla. 1974).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

TJOFLAT, District Judge

Plaintiff, Samuel McKinney, brought this action attacking the constitutionality of Section 324.051(2), Florida [136]*136Statutes, as applied to him. McKinney contends that the state has deprived him of substantive due process of law by suspending his driver’s license for failure to meet certain statutory requirements which his financial status precludes him from satisfying. Resting jurisdiction on Title 28, United States Code, Section 1343(3), McKinney seeks declaratory relief under Title 28, United States Code, Section 2202, and Title 42, United States Code, Section 1983; and whatever other relief the Court may deem proper. The case is now before a three-judge panel convened pursuant to Title 28, United States Code, Sections 2281 and 2284, having been presented for final determination after a pre-trial agreement as to the factual matters involved.

McKinney is a fifty-five-year-old man with an eleventh grade education. He has been a taxicab driver in Jacksonville, Florida continuously since 1961. His average income of $55 per week constitutes the sole source of support for him and his wife. On June 25, 1972, while driving a borrowed car, McKinney was involved in a collision with another vehicle. Neither McKinney nor the owner of the car he was driving carried liability insurance at the time of the accident. The Florida Bureau of Financial Responsibility subsequently advised McKinney that, if he failed to comply with the requirements of Section 324.-051(2), Florida Statutes, his driver’s license would be suspended. On October 27, 1972, McKinney requested a hearing pursuant to the Rules of the Department of Insurance.1 This application resulted in an automatic stay of any order of suspension pending the hearing.2 As a result of the hearing, the Bureau of Financial Responsibility determined that there was a “reasonable possibility” of a civil judgment for damages against McKinney as a result of the accident. Following review and affirmance of this decision by the Bureau’s chief, McKinney was given thirty days to comply with the provisions of the Financial Responsibility Law (Chapter 324, Florida Statutes) as required by Section 324.-051(2) thereof.

Section 324.051(2) provides, inter alia, for suspension of the license of an uninsured driver involved in an accident resulting in bodily injury, death, or $200 property damage unless he can satisfy one of the seven exceptions set forth therein.3 Since McKinney’s accident did [137]*137not fall within any of the special exemptions provided, and he had not been judicially exonerated from liability, his only means of avoiding license suspension was by proving his financial responsibility for future accidents asprovided in Section 324.031,4 and by either obtaining a release from liability from all persons injured in the accident or depositing security sufficient to compensate for the injuries as provided in Section 324.061.5

Unable to obtain releases or to post the required security of $1,700, McKinney applied to the United States District Court for an injunction to prevent the otherwise inevitable suspension of his license. Relying on McKinney’s representations that he is covered by his employer’s liability policy while driving [138]*138a taxicab in the course of his employment and that suspension would cause him irreparable damage, the Court, on February 8, 1973, temporarily restrained defendants from suspending McKinney’s license insofar as his employment is concerned pending resolution of the constitutional issues in this case. That order is still in effect.

McKinney contends that the purposes of the Statute are: (1) to assure that uninsured drivers, once involved in an accident, whose liability is a “reasonable possibility” will not cause damage or injury to others in the future with a motor vehicle unless they are able to fulfill their resulting financial obligation as required by law; and (2) to encourage such uninsured drivers to fulfill their resulting financial obligations to those involved in the first accident. McKinney concedes that both goals are legitimate, but argues that the Statute is invalid as applied to him because its scheme for achieving the first goal operates with fatal over-breadth by suspending the licenses of those drivers who unquestionably satisfy the statutory concern, and because its scheme for achieving the second goal frustrates, rather than promotes, that goal.

With regard to the first point, McKinney argues that the only relief he seeks herein is retention of his driver’s license for employment purposes, the very relief he currently enjoys under the Court’s temporary restraining order. While driving for his employer, McKinney is covered by his employer’s liability insurance, and therefore the first statutory goal — financial responsibility for future accidents — is satisfied even though McKinney has not complied with the contested Statute. In passing on McKinney’s claim that the statute deprives him of substantive due process of law,6 the only inquiry is whether the Statute’s goals are illegitimate, its means irrational, or its impact on protected interests so severe in light of the alternatives that an otherwise valid statute is rendered unreasonable. Williamson v. Lee Optical Co., 348 U.S. 483, 75 S.Ct. 461, 99 L.Ed. 563 (1955); West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379, 57 S.Ct. 578, 81 L.Ed. 703 (1937); Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502, 54 S.Ct. 505, 78 L.Ed. 940 (1934). McKinney appeals to the Court’s discretion within the latter area of inquiry by urging that the Statute unnecessarily deprives him of a driver’s license for employment driving.

The Court recognizes that for someone with McKinney’s educational background and experience a driver’s license may constitute the only means of livelihood and that suspension may result in his addition to the rolls of those receiving unemployment compensation. These considerations, however, must be viewed in light of the state’s legitimate basis for not exempting McKinney from the statutory requirements. The legislature may have rationally concluded that, although allowing McKinney to drive for his employer would satisfy the first statutory goal, enforcement of such a restriction on McKinney’s license to drive would be extremely difficult. In order for McKinney to be covered by his employer’s policy, he must use the employer’s vehicle with the employer’s consent and in the normal course of its business. Whether, in a given accident case, McKinney was operating his cab in the discharge of his employer’s business and with its consent so to bring him within the employer’s policy coverage may involve close examination of a complex set of facts. Furthermore, were the legislature to allow restricted licenses for employment driving, could it not be made to allow special licenses for any person [139]*139wishing to be restricted to driving situations where he would be covered by the insurance of another, employer or not, as well? Thus, could not McKinney use his argument with equal force in an attempt to secure a license restricting him to driving his neighbor’s car with consent? The enforcement problems that such a situation would engender are obvious.

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Bluebook (online)
379 F. Supp. 135, 1974 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7272, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mckinney-v-omalley-flmd-1974.