Court Opinion

ID: 9884104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:37:13.673629+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:35.596680
License: Public Domain

HUSPENI, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent and would rescind the revocation of appellant’s license. Officer Molstad chose to offer appellant an alternative to the breath test. By so doing, he was compelled, I believe, to comply with the statutory requirements governing that alternative.
Minn.Stat. § 169.123, subd. 2(c) (1986) provides:
The peace officer who requires a test pursuant to this subdivision may direct whether the test shall be of blood, breath, or urine. However, if the officer directs that the test shall be of a person’s blood or urine, the person may choose whether the test shall be of blood or urine.
There is nothing in this provision which requires that the driver be given the choice of a blood or urine test only if blood or urine is the first test offered.
In mandating that a driver be given the choice between blood and urine tests the legislature recognized that some people have a reasonable aversion to providing a blood sample. State v. Boland, 299 Minn. 198, 199, 217 N.W.2d 491, 492 (1974). This reasonable aversion does not disappear merely because a driver is first offered a breath test.
Further, I cannot agree with the majority’s attempt to distinguish Haugen v. Commissioner of Public Safety, 389 N.W.2d 222 (Minn.Ct.App.1986). In Haugen the only test offered was a blood test. However, there is nothing in Haugen which limits its holding to such a factual setting. Haugen recognizes that “we cannot ignore the legislative mandate that a driver must be given a choice.” Id. at 224. The legislatively mandated choice recognized in Haugen is not a choice between a breath test and a blood test; it is a choice between a blood test and a urine test. Appellant was not offered that choice.