Opinion ID: 1796837
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: DMV's Argument on Appeal.

Text: [2] On appeal, the DMV contends that the district court erred in concluding that Edmunds needed to be placed under oath before signing the sworn report. The question presented by this assignment of error is whether a sworn report complied with § 60-498.01 and vested the DMV with jurisdiction when the arresting officer's signature was acknowledged rather than sworn. [3-7] This court has previously noted that sworn reports in administrative license revocation proceedings are, by definition, affidavits. [2] An affidavit is a written or printed declaration or statement of facts, made voluntarily, and confirmed by the oath or affirmation of the party making it, taken before a person having authority to administer such oath or affirmation. [3] An affidavit must bear on its face, by the certificate of the officer before whom it is taken, evidence that it was duly sworn to by the party making the same. [4] An affidavit does not, however, require a notary to confirm the truth of the facts stated in the affidavit; rather, the certificate, also known as a jurat, confirms only that the affiant appeared before the notary, attested to the truth of his or her statements, and signed the affidavit. [5] Oaths to affidavits ordinarily are not required to be administered with any particular ceremony, but the affiant must perform some corporal act before the officer whereby the affiant consciously takes upon himself or herself the obligation of an oath. [6] The signature of the officer is a corporal act which is generally sufficient to meet the requirement of execution under oath. [7] In this case, Edmunds signed the report and the report was notarized. Edmunds testified that she signed the report in the presence of the notary. No other action was required by either Edmunds or the notary. The notary was not required to confirm the truth of the statements; the very fact that Edmunds signed the report in the presence of a notary and that her signature was in fact notarized was sufficient as an oath or affirmation. Moyer argues that Edmunds' testimony indicates that at the time Edmunds signed the report, she did not have any conscious notion that she was `swearing' to the contents of the document or that she was taking an oath of any sort. [8] We disagree with Moyer's characterization of Edmunds' testimony. Moreover, we note that the report itself states that [t]he undersigned officer(s) hereby swear(s).... Such is a clear and objective indication that Edmunds was aware at the time she signed the report that she was swearing to the contents of the report. We have previously addressed the converse argument to the one presented by this case. In In re Interest of Fedalina G., [9] the State argued that a poverty affidavit was defective because the acknowledgment recited that the affidavit was `subscribed and sworn' to before the notary, and not `acknowledged.' This court rejected that argument, concluding that an affidavit was a written declaration made under oath and that the notary's certificate confirms that the affiant appeared before the notary, attested to the truth of his or her statements, and signed the affidavit. [10] We therefore conclude that the district court erred by finding that because the report stated the notary acknowledged Edmunds' signature rather than swearing and subscribing that signature, the DMV lacked jurisdiction to revoke Moyer's license.