Court Opinion

ID: 9868615
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 18:44:17.564238+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:45:52.130549
License: Public Domain

' Ok ReheaeeNG.
A petition to rehear challenges the affirmance by this Court of a conviction of petitioner of the offense of driving an automobile after his license had been suspended by the State Highway authorities, on the theory that the section of the Act of 1937, Chapter 90, Code, 'Section 2715.28, which creates the offense, applies to nonresidents only. We think the statute is not so limited.
The Code Section (Michie’s Repl., 1942) cited above reads:
“Driving While License Suspended or Revoked. Any person whose operator’s or chauffeur’s license, or driving privilege as a non-resident, has been cancelled, suspended or revoked as provided in this-Act, and who drives any motor vehicle upon the highways of this State while such license or privilege is cancelled, suspended, or revoked, is guilty of a misdemeanor..and upon conviction *180shall be punished by imprisonment- for not less than - 2 days or more than 6 months and there may be imposed in addition thereto a-fine of not more than $500.”
The obvious intent is to cover and include “any person”- operating- a motor vehicle¿ whether holding an operator’s license, a chauffeur’s license, or exercising a driving privilege-as a non-resident. These three classes of authorized drivers are expressly recognized in the preceding sections, 2715.10 of the Code. Subdivision (a) provides that no person shall drive on the highways of the State without a valid license either as an operator, or as a chauffeur, unless “expressly hereinafter exempted. Those “exempted” are designated in subdivisions of subsection (b) and among these are non-resident operators on conditions prescribed.
We can find no intention in the language or context of Code, Section 2715.28, to restrict its application to the third of these three classes of drivers, those holding (1) a license as an operator,. (2) a license as chauffeur, and (3)'a driving “privilege” as a non-president. Upon cancellation, suspension or revocation of the right of any person of either class to drive on the highway, that person comes within the prohibition and penalty of the law.
Moreover, as noted by the Assistant Attorney General in his brief, by a preceding section (Code, Section 2715.25), the Division is expressly “authorized to suspend any license herein authorized, whether of a -resident or noli-resident, ” etc.
This Court would be slow to adopt a construction which would so obviously discriminate against non-residents of the 'State, and also defeat the manifest object of the legislation, which is to prevent driving upon our highways by those who have forfeited this right.
The petition is dismissed.