State v. Wooden
This text of 92 So. 3d 886 (State v. Wooden) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
Opinion
The State appeals from an order dismissing an information for the felony charge of unlawful driving as a habitual offender under section 322.34(5), Florida Statutes (2011).1 That offense requires, and the information alleged, that the defendant had three convictions of driving with a suspended driver’s license within a five-year period.2 Two of the underlying suspensions occurred because she twice failed to pay assessed traffic fines; the third, because she failed to appear in court on a traffic summons after she had herself requested a hearing for the offenses of driving with an expired registration and failure to provide proof of insurance. The basis of the ruling below was the view that the suspension for the third “failure to appear” charge did not qualify as one of the required three suspensions because it was contained within the provision which reduced the charge to a misdemeanor, § 322.34(2)(b), Fla. Stat. (2011),3 when the suspension was based on the failure to comply with a civil penalty required in section 318.15, Florida Statutes (2011). See § 322.34(10)(a)3., Fla. Stat. (2011).4 We disagree and reverse.
[888]*888• ■ The issue is whether the term “[flailing to comply with a civil penalty required in s. 318.15,” § 822.34(10)(a)3., includes by reference all the provisions of section 318.15, including the failure to appear at a scheduled hearing as involved in this case. Contrary to the ruling below, we think the answer is self-evidently no. Section 322.34(10)(a)3. simply does not say “those offenses contained in section 318.15.” It says only failure to comply with a civil penalty required in that section. Thus, it refers only to the civil penalty requirement and not to any of the others. See City of Miami v. Valdez, 847 So.2d 1005, 1008 (Fla. 3d DCA 2003) (“[W]hen a law expressly describes a particular situation where something should apply [here, noncompliance with a civil penalty], an inference must be drawn that what is not included by specific reference [here, failure to appear] was intended to be omitted or excluded.”); see also State v. Hearns, 961 So.2d 211, 219 (Fla.2007) (“Under the canon of statutory construction expressio uni-us est exclusio alterius, the mention of one thing implies the exclusion of another.”).
It seems to us that the legislature, as it was clearly entitled to do, drew a distinction, which is decisive in this case, between a failure to comply with a civil penalty, which occurs when such a penalty has been validly assessed after trial or without contest, and the deliberate refusal to appear at a hearing, with its consequent disruption of the court’s process and which, it must be added, would actually preclude the valid assessment of a penalty because there would have been no trial in the first place.
Accordingly, we reverse the order below with instructions to reinstate the information.
Reversed and remanded.
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack
92 So. 3d 886, 2012 WL 2849648, 2012 Fla. App. LEXIS 11111, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-wooden-fladistctapp-2012.