Court Opinion

ID: 9649906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:13:16.838487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:15.857529
License: Public Domain

TAMILIA, Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully but vigorously dissent to the majority Opinion affirming the trial court’s Order granting appellant’s petition for writ of habeas corpus. Contrary to the majority, I would reverse and remand the case for trial.
This is an appeal from the May 18, 1989 Order of court granting appellee’s petition for writ of habeas corpus. On January 27, 1989, at approximately 5:53 p.m., a Pennsylva*514nia State University police officer observed appellee as he attempted to enter his car which was parked in the Nittany Silver parking lot, a small parking lot located on the university campus next to a dormitory. Appellee was swaying back and forth as he stood by his car while trying to locate his keys. He retrieved them from his coat pocket and spent approximately three minutes just getting the driver’s door open. Once appellee was in the car, he turned the headlights on and off twice, raced the engine, backed up the car and then “squealed” the tires pulling out. The police officer effectuated a traffic stop, observed appellee’s disheveled appearance and combativeness and asked him to perform certain field sobriety tests. Upon appellee’s failure to pass any of the three tests, the police officer arrested appellee and transported him to a local hospital, where a blood samplé indicated appellee’s blood alcohol level was .173 per cent. Based on his observations, the test results and the blood sample results, the police officer, on February 3, 1989, swore out an arrest warrant for appellee for driving under the influence.1
At a preliminary hearing on March 8, 1989, the district justice bound appellee over on the charges. Appellee petitioned the court for a writ of habeas corpus challenging the district justice’s holding him for court. As grounds for his petition, appellee asserted the Commonwealth failed to establish a prima facie case against him because the offense did not take place on a “highway” or “trafficway” as required under the Motor Vehicle Code.2 The court granted *515appellee’s petition by Order dated May 18, 1989. The Commonwealth brings this appeal, having certified in good faith that the court’s Order terminates and substantially handicaps the Commonwealth’s prosecution of appellee. Commonwealth v. Dugger, 506 Pa. 537, 486 A.2d 382 (1985); Commonwealth v. Deans, 388 Pa.Super. 521, 565 A.2d 1230 (1989).
The Commonwealth contends the court erred in granting appellee’s petition because the parking lot is a highway or trafficway within the meaning of the statute. The Motor Vehicle Code provides:
§ 3101. Application of part
(a) General rule. — Except as provided in subsection (b), the provisions of this part relating to the operation of vehicles refer exclusively to the operation of vehicles upon highways except where a different place is specifically referred to in a particular provision.
(b) Serious traffic offenses. — The provision of Subchapter B of Chapter 37 (relating to serious traffic offenses) shall apply upon highways and trafficways throughout this Commonwealth.
75 Pa.C.S. § 3101. Highways and trafficways are defined as:
§ 102. Definitions
“Highway” The entire width between the boundary lines of every way publicly maintained when any part thereof is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. The term includes a roadway open to the use of the public for vehicular travel on grounds of a college or university or public or private school or public or historical park.
“Trafficway” The entire width between property lines or other boundary lines of every way or place of which any *516part is open to the public for purposes of vehicular travel as a matter of right or custom.
75 Pa.C.S. § 102. I conclude, without question, the evidence establishes the incident occurred in a place open to the public for purposes of vehicular travel as a matter of right or custom. The majority would require that extensive evidence be introduced to establish the nature of the parking lot and the degree of public access to bring it within the meaning of the statute. I believe the statute is broad enough to comprehend any parking lot, and establishes that a parking lot used by motor vehicles and any persons, even if limited to students or university personnel, creates the necessary element for the purpose of establishing a prima facie case.
The record shows the Nittany Silver parking lot is a restricted student parking lot provided for the use of dormitory residents. However, the parking lot is restricted only from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. Otherwise, the lot is open to public use. Moreover, even if restricted by signs, a parking lot is a trafficway for purposes of section 3101 if it is used by members of the public. Commonwealth v. Wilson, 381 Pa.Super. 253, 553 A.2d 452 (1989). In Wilson, the appellant was arrested and charged with driving under the influence after operating a car in a parking lot marked with private signs. The Wilson Court stated:
It would raise form to towering levels above substance if parking lots, in which vehicular traffic is encouraged and occurs, sometimes at high rates of speed, were to become “DWI-free zones,” in which drunk driving is tolerated from entrance to exit. Such a construction would seriously undermine the effectiveness of any drunk driving prohibitions.
Id., 381 Pa.Superior Ct. at 257, 553 A.2d at 454.
The definition of “trafficway” in § 102 clearly allows for inclusion of public parking lots because such lots are clearly the “width between property lines or other boundary lines of every way or place of which any part is open to the *517public for purposes of vehicular travel as a matter of right or custom.”
Appellee would limit this lot only to the permissible residents of an adjoining dormitory. No evidence is adduced that only such residents could use the lot. Private property signs or restricting use to customers cannot limit the application of section 102, see Wilson, supra, and neither can stickers or restricted parking designations, on what is essentially a public area, achieve that result.
As pointed out above, the parking lot was unrestricted at the time of the arrest. Appellee does not contest this fact. I would find the parking lot had changed from a limited public use to a general use parking lot. (I would not hold, however, that had appellant been arrested during the restricted time period, our result in this case would have been any different.) Stickers or parking zones cannot be the basis upon which to restrict a trafficway or roadway from application of the DUI statutes. If this were so, a major portion of city streets in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia in congested residential areas and surrounding universities, colleges and hospitals would be off-limits to arrest for DUI when a person was in one of those areas. The parking areas of some of our large housing developments, public and private, likewise would be insulated. Such a holding now requires of the police awaiting the crossing of a multitude of imaginary lines by drunken drivers to effect stops or arrests if they were to be upheld by the court.
As it was held in Commonwealth v. Mikulan, 504 Pa. 244, 470 A.2d 1339 (1983), an important purpose of the laws on drunk driving is to deter drunk driving and to retard the wanton and senseless slaughter of and injury to innocent people upon our highways caused by drunk drivers. Id., 504 Pa. at 248, 470 A.2d at 1341. It is unthinkable that the legislature would have conceived legislation imposing such restrictions and limitations on the reasonable implementation of their legislative intent. The respected jurist, the Honorable Carson Brown, in discussing the implications of his decision, expressed serious, if not grave, misgivings *518over the possibility that a person could be struck and killed in a parking lot by a drunk driver and yet escape liability for his actions (H.T., 4/17/89, p. 7). To eliminate the uncertainty and resolve ambiguity, it is necessary to place a different interpretation on the use of the parking lot than did the trial judge. Judge Brown, in making his findings, relying on a previous decision he had rendered (Commonwealth v. Roesch, 18 Pa. D. & C.3d 59 (C.P. Centre County 1981)), found the lot was not customarily used by the public. This interpretation at least outwardly distinguishes the present case from Wilson. I disagree with that interpretation.
I would hold that the residents of the dormitory are part of the public as well as visitors, repairman, pizza delivery persons or any of the myriad of other persons who have access to that lot. It is inconceivable that with the incredible number of automobiles in use in our society today and the increasing dedication of extensive areas for parking purposes with accompanying schemes of limitation and restrictions as to use, that the law would permit such areas to be insulated from the consequences of drunk driving. We are no less subject to all of the harms to be prevented by application of the DUI laws in parking lots than on busy highways or city streets. My distinguished colleagues, in refusing to acknowledge that a parking lot per se cannot be distinguished from a city street, have created a free zone for drunk drivers. They would emasculate the law by ignoring the facts.
A case could be made that a driver or pedestrian should be even more cautious and sober in large parking lots than on city streets because of the high concentration of cars and people and the inevitable crisscrossing between the two. In Commonwealth Dept. of Transportation v. Bendik, 112 Pa.Commw. 591, 535 A.2d 1249 (1988), the Commonwealth Court ruled that a parking lot was a trafficway because it was open to the public and vehicular traffic did occur on it. I believe this holding and that of Wilson, supra, supports my position that despite restrictions which may be imposed as to the class of persons permitted to park in a particular *519area, customary use by the public means those persons in the restricted class as well as any other persons reasonably expected to have vehicular access to the property. Neither the size of the lot, its administrative restrictions, its attachment to a residential unit, business or institution for the use of the persons using that facility nor the class of persons privileged to use the lot insulate intoxicated persons from the DUI laws pursuant to 75 Pa.C.S. § 3731. There is no need, therefore, to establish in a preliminary hearing the nature of the traffic or business conducted on a parking lot.
I would, therefore, reverse the trial court’s Order granting appellee’s petition for writ of habeas corpus and dismissing the charges against him. This case should be remanded for trial.

. 75 Pa.C.S. § 3731(a)(l)-(4).

. The majority affirms the trial court as no evidence was adduced in the magistrate's hearing on the record to establish the parking lot was open to the public for purposes of vehicular traffic as a matter of right or custom. Neither the appellant nor appellee have contested the factual allegations of this case but are relying on the legal intent of the statute. As such, a campus parking lot, no less than a motel parking lot, Commonwealth Dept. of Transportation v. Bendik, 112 Pa.Commw. 591, 535 A.2d 1249 (1988), or a club parking lot, Commonwealth v. Wilson, 381 Pa.Super. 253, 553 A.2d 452 (1989), has generally accepted attributes.
The need for a record to be made to establish specifically and in detail the attributes of this parking lot is, therefore, no more neces*515sary than the need to take detailed evidence as to the attributes of any street or highway where a violation occurred. Stating what it is is sufficient, unless a party raises specific questions which place the matter in issue.