Weber v. Department of Motor Vehicles

818 P.2d 1221, 112 N.M. 697
CourtNew Mexico Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 13, 1991
DocketNo. 11391
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 818 P.2d 1221 (Weber v. Department of Motor Vehicles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Weber v. Department of Motor Vehicles, 818 P.2d 1221, 112 N.M. 697 (N.M. Ct. App. 1991).

Opinion

OPINION

CHAVEZ, Judge.

This appeal arises from an incident involving the arrest of a licensed driver (licensee). A police officer followed licensee to what turned out to be his residence and arrested him for driving while intoxicated. After nearly an hour, another officer tested licensee in two separate ways for blood alcohol content. The result of both tests was that licensee’s blood alcohol content was over the legal limit of .10%. The officer seized licensee’s license, gave him a notice of revocation of the license, and issued him a temporary license in lieu of his permanent one. The matter of the revocation of licensee’s license came to a hearing eighty-nine days after the date the officer issued the notice of revocation, but was only partially heard and was continued by the hearing officer until March 4,1988,145 days after licensee’s arrest. The hearing officer revoked the license for ninety days, and the district court affirmed that order.

Licensee appeals the district court’s judgment affirming the order. He makes four arguments on appeal: (1) the Department of Motor Vehicles’ (DMV) final order was void for failure to make specific findings; (2) there was no substantial evidence that licensee’s blood alcohol content was .10% or more at the time he operated his vehicle; (3) DMV violated licensee’s procedural due process rights by failing to hold a hearing within ninety days from the date of the notice of revocation; and (4) DMV’s decision was generally not supported by substantial evidence on the record as a whole. We conclude that there was no substantial evidence to support one element necessary for DMV to revoke the license, and therefore we reverse.

In order for the DMV to revoke a driver’s license, a hearing officer must find that DMV proved by a preponderance of the evidence all the facts listed in NMSA 1978, Section 66-8-112(F) (Repl.Pamp. 1987). See In re Gober, 85 N.M. 457, 513 P.2d 391 (1973).

Section 66-8-112(F) provides in applicable part:

The director or his designee shall enter an order either rescinding or sustaining the revocation or denial of the person’s license or privilege to drive if he [1] finds that the law enforcement officer had reasonable grounds to believe [that] the driver was driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or drug, [2] that the person was arrested, [3] that this hearing is held no later than ninety days after notice of revocation and that [4] the person either refused to submit to the test upon request of the law enforcement officer after the law enforcement officer advised him that his failure to submit to the test could result in the revocation of his privilege to drive, or that a chemical test was administered pursuant to the provisions of the Implied Consent Act and the test results indicated [that the person tested was driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor]. If one or more of the above are not found by the director, the person’s license shall not be revoked. [Emphasis added.]

DMV admits in its answer brief that, while the hearing started on the eighty-ninth day after the arresting officer notified licensee of revocation, the hearing did not end until well after the ninetieth day. DMV does not contend that the hearing was held no later than ninety days after notice of revocation. Instead, DMV argues that it had a right to a postponement for good cause. See § 66-8-112(C).

The cause that DMV argues warranted a postponement was that there were too many witnesses in this case for the time the hearing officer scheduled for the revocation hearing. DMV relies on Molina v. McQuinn, 107 N.M. 384, 758 P.2d 798 (1988), to argue that in this situation, despite the time limit for hearings that Section 66-8-112(C) imposes, DMV ought to be able to postpone those hearings for good cause. We disagree because Molina is inapposite for two reasons.

First, as licensee points out, Molina is inapposite because the statutory structure upon which it is based is distinct from the statutory structure at issue here. The supreme court in Molina applied terms of the Uniform Licensing Act, NMSA 1978, Sections 61-1-1 to -33 (Repl.Pamp.1986). The revocation hearing was to be held within sixty days pursuant to Section 61-1-4(D). Notwithstanding that limit, Section 61-1-9(A) allowed the agency, without qualification, to “direct a continuance of any case.” Without defining when a continuance would be appropriate, the supreme court simply held that a continuance was possible in the case before it. Molina v. McQuinn. The supreme court did not generally hold that a continuance was proper in administrative agency matters upon a showing of good cause. Also, the supreme court did not address application of the language of Section 66-8-112(C), which qualifies DMV’s ability to continue a revocation hearing “for a period not to exceed ninety days from the date of notice of revocation # * * * tt

Section 66-8-112(C) unambiguously allows a maximum of ninety days within which DMV may seek a continuance. Because Molina did not apply such restrictive language, the case does not apply here.

Second, Molina is inapposite because the Uniform Licensing Act does not contain a list of facts which the hearing officer must find before revocation of a license. Section 66-8-112(F) does contain such a prerequisite. Without proof of the facts the list requires, the DMV hearing officer may not revoke a driver’s license. If the legislature intended a good cause exception to such a specific factual requirement, we think the legislature would have expressly allowed such an exception rather than leave the task to us. See Amerada Hess Corp. v. Adee, 106 N.M. 422, 744 P.2d 550 (Ct.App.1987). This specific factual predicate to agency action is not present in Molina, and therein lies the second reason why the case is inapposite.

This second aspect of the inapplicability of Molina is also the reason why Redman v. Board of Regents of New Mexico School for the Visually Handicapped, 102 N.M. 234, 693 P.2d 1266 (Ct.App.1984), is inapposite. We held in Redman, without statutory guidance, that an agency may allow for continuances upon a showing of good cause. Yet the board of regents in Red-man, although required to hold a hearing within sixty days, did not have to find as a matter of fact that the hearing took place within sixty days. See NMSA 1978, § 22-10-20 (Repl.Pamp.1984). Without a statutory requirement before us in Redman similar to Section 66-8-112(F), the holding in that case does not apply here.

We note that our reading of subsection F is consistent with the qualified allowances in subsection C for continuances. Subsection C requires DMV to get its work done, but for the final decision, within ninety days. Subsection F assures compliance with the subsection C rule by further requiring, as an element of proof necessary for revocation, that DMV hold the hearing within the ninety days. Moreover, we infer from the rigid ninety-day rule a careful, reasonable balance of policies by the legislature.

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Bluebook (online)
818 P.2d 1221, 112 N.M. 697, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/weber-v-department-of-motor-vehicles-nmctapp-1991.