Court Opinion

ID: 9702828
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 23:25:51.614656+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:10:53.247220
License: Public Domain

DELLA PORTA, Senior Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. This case is on all fours with Department of Transportation, Bureau of Traffic Safety v. O’Connell, 521 Pa. 242, 555 A.2d 873 (1989). In O’Connell, the Supreme Court rejected the conclusion that anything short of an unqualified assent to take the test under these circumstances is viewed as a refusal, Id. at 250, 555 A.2d at 877, and went on to say:
This state of affairs is unacceptable because it is fraught with pitfalls for the arrestee who is not trained to recognize the difference between a civil or criminal investigation and becomes a source of accusations of manipulation by the police over confused individuals who are suspected of having dulled senses.
Id. at 252, 555 A.2d at 877 (emphasis added).
In the O’Connell case the confusion was over the right to counsel in the criminal charge of Driving Under the Influence and the requirement to take the chemical test. Here we have a confusion over the request by the policeman, after the arrestee had agreed to submit to the test, to sign a hospital waiver of liability form and the submission to a blood test, which was further compounded by the arrestee’s fear of contracting AIDS by the use of a needle for the blood test. The two circumstances could not be more analogous. The Supreme Court concluded that
*712[s]ince the course of conduct of the police creates the confusion in these cases, it is appropriate to place the duty-on them to clarify ... thereby insuring that those arrestees who indicate their confusion ... are not being misled into making uninformed and unknowing decisions to take the test.
Id. at 253, 555 A.2d at 878.
In reaching this conclusion the Court reiterated that “making a knowing and conscious refusal to take the test ... is a factual determination which is to be made by the trial court.” Id. at 249, 555 A.2d at 876 (emphasis added). “The trial court chose to believe Appellant, and his findings in this regard are conclusive---- To the extent that the Commonwealth Court chose to accept and reject portions of Appellant’s testimony and, in effect, to make its own findings of fact, it exceeded its scope of review____” Id. at 249-50, 555 A.2d at 876.
In the case sub judice, our scope of review is limited to whether there is in the record sufficient evidence which is adequate to support the necessary findings of fact made by the trial court, bearing in mind that we must resolve all doubts and reasonable inferences that can be drawn from the evidence in favor of the Appellee. Penflex, Inc. v. Bryson, 506 Pa. 274, 485 A.2d 359 (1984). I submit that the answer is definitely yes and, therefore, “we are precluded from overturning that finding and must affirm” the trial court’s decision. O’Connell, 521 Pa. at 248, 555 A.2d 875.