Opinion ID: 1335498
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Period of Suspension

Text: The Court of Appeals held that respondent committed a single offense resulting in harm to more than one person. It found the legislature failed to anticipate this type of situation when it mandated license suspensions, and construed the statute to allow only a single three year suspension when a felony DUI defendant has only one accident, regardless of the number of persons injured or killed. The Department argues this was error. We agree. First, it is simply incorrect to assert that respondent committed only a single offensehe committed only one type of offense. More importantly, the relevant event in the statute triggering the suspension is `conviction', not offense or accident. Respondent has three convictions pursuant to § 56-5-2945, and under the plain language of the statute faces three three year suspensions. Further, unlike the Court of Appeals, we find the legislature did consider the possibility that a defendant could injure multiple victims because the statute specifies that the driver's license suspension is mandatory upon conviction or plea. Had the legislature intended for the suspensions to be dependent upon something other than the number of convictions, the legislature would have made the operative event the `accident' or `incident.' The statute is silent, however, as to the Department's authority to run the suspensions consecutively. In Bay v. South Carolina Highway Dep't, 266 S.C. 9, 221 S.E.2d 106 (1975), appellant was convicted of reckless homicide and leaving the scene of an accident, both convictions arising out of a single accident. Each conviction carried a mandatory license suspension, and we held that the Department was authorized to impose these suspensions consecutively, noting: (1) nothing in the statute required the Department to make the suspensions concurrent; (2) that the fact appellant's criminal sentences ran concurrently was irrelevant to these civil suspensions; and (3) There is nothing to indicate that [Bay] is entitled to be rewarded by having the periods of suspension run concurrently simply because he committed two offenses within a very short period of each other. Id. While Bay is not dispositive of the issue here, we adopt its reasoning. First, the felony DUI statute does not require concurrent suspensions. Second, we do not believe respondent is entitled to be rewarded by concurrent suspensions simply because he fortuitously seriously injured three people in one accident rather than injuring each in a separate accident. It is within the Department's authority to run the mandatory license suspensions under the felony DUI statute consecutively. The Court of Appeals' holding to the contrary is reversed. For these reasons, the decision of the Court of Appeals is REVERSED. TOAL, MOORE, WALLER, and BURNETT, JJ., concur.