Court Opinion

ID: 9769303
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 14:44:14.370629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:59.969444
License: Public Domain

SEILER, Judge
(concurring in result).
The argument which appellant raises in his brief is that the statute authorizing forfeiture of a driver’s license for refusal to take an intoxication test is invalid, because it allows the director of revenue to revoke a license for “not more than one year” but contains no standards to guide the director of revenue in deciding whether or not to revoke a license or for what period to revoke the license. In other words, as appellant reads the statute, the director of revenue, on proper certification, has the arbitrary power to revoke a driver’s license for one year, for a period less than one year, or not to revoke the license at all. The problem is there are no standards in the statute to guide the director in determining which drivers should have their licenses revoked and for what period. Thus, the statute is subject to arbitrary and discriminatory application by the director of revenue and under the terms of the statute it is impossible to determine if it has been properly applied; that is, to determine whether under the statute this appellant’s license should have been revoked for one year. See Davis, Administrative Law, Sec. 2.10 (1958).
The proposed opinion states that appellant has no standing to raise this argument because appellant was told his license would be revoked for one year and it was. However, the fact that appellant knew how long his license would be revoked does not answer the point raised, and does not cure *81the objection that the statute contains no standards for determining whether appellant’s license should have been revoked for a year, even though he knew that it would be. See Annot., Automobiles: Validity and Construction of Legislation Authorizing Revocation or Suspension of Operator’s License, etc., 9 A.L.R.3d 756.
Respondent takes the, position that the statute requires an automatic one year revocation. This contention finds support in Bolling v. Schaffner, 488 S.W.2d 212, 217 (Mo.App.1972) which says that one of the purposes of Sec. 564.444, RSMo, is “to punish those guilty of the offense of driving while intoxicated by revoking such offender’s license and privilege to operate motor vehicles upon the highways of Missouri for a period of one year.” Under this view the decision to revoke for one year is made by the statute and is not left in the director’s hands. For this reason I concur in the result recommended by HIGGINS, C.