Court Opinion

ID: 9703619
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:02:15.261027+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:21:50.586175
License: Public Domain

CAPPY, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I agree with the majority that the trial court’s order rescinding the suspension of appellee’s driver’s license must be *443reversed. I write separately to set forth my rationale for reversal, and to articulate the issues that I believe this case resolves. I disagree, however, with the majority’s decision to reinstate the suspension of appellee’s driver’s license. It would appear that ancillary or undecided issues that fall outside the scope of this court’s direct review under 42 Pa.C.S. § 722(7) have been raised. I would, therefore, remand this matter for further proceedings.
My reading of the record reveals that the appellee, Ryan T. Crooks, (“Crooks”), pursued several issues in appealing the suspension of his driver’s license by the Appellant, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, (“Bureau”). The issue that served as the basis for the trial court’s decision to rescind the suspension was presented as follows: “[Whether] the [Bureau] and the New Jersey [Division] of Motor Vehicles [“Division”] have not complied with the [Driver License Compact as enacted in Pennsylvania, 75 Pa.C.S. §§ 1581 el seq. (the “Compact”) ] with regard to the notice of defendant’s conviction by the [Division] and the subsequent suspension of the defendant’s Pennsylvania operating privileges.”1 (R. 6a). It was Crooks’ position that the suspension could not stand because the report the Division transmitted to the Bureau did not contain all of the information that Article III of the Compact requires, including the particular subsection of the New Jersey statute he violated. His argument was premised on the assertion that since Article III demands strict compliance, any omission in a report invalidates a suspension. The trial court agreed.
*444In its opinion, the trial court also stated that the 1998 amendment to 75 Pa.C.S. § 1584, which the Bureau asserted ameliorated or relaxed Articles Ill’s reporting requirements, violated Article III, as well as principles of due process under the United States and Pennsylvania Constitutions. In doing so, the trial court relied on Commonwealth, Dep’t. of Transp. v. Harrington, 42 Pa. D. & C. 4th 153 (C.P. Chester 1999), in which the notice sent to the licensee was, except for relevant dates, identical in pertinent part to the notice that Crooks received.
Recently, this court held otherwise on both of these issues. In Commonwealth, Dep’t. of Transp. v. McCafferty, 563 Pa. 146, 758 A.2d 1155, 1164-65 (2000), we determined that the Bureau is not necessarily prevented from fulfilling its duties under the Compact and a suspension is not invalidated by the mere fact that a report from a party state does not include the items listed in Article III. In Harrington v. Commonwealth, Dep’t. of Transp., 563 Pa. 565, 763 A.2d 386 (2000), we determined that the court of common pleas erred, in declaring § 1584 contrary to Article III and violative of due process. In light of these holdings, I agree with the majority that Crooks’ appeal fails.
My difficulty with the majority’s analysis is two-fold. First, as I read it, the majority’s analysis construes and decides the issue that Crooks raised with respect to the New Jersey report upon which the Bureau acted as one that involves notice to Crooks and the constitutional issue of due process. Although we rejected the licensees’ assertion in McCafferty that the Bureau’s certified records deprived them of the right to procedural due process, 758 A.2d at 1163, Crooks did not make that argument here. As I have explained, I am of the view that the issue Crooks raised, and one which McCafferty settled, was whether Article III mandates strict compliance in the reports the Bureau receives from party states, and not one of notice.
Second, the majority opinion may be interpreted as resolving issues that I do not believe are properly before us, and ones that I do not believe either McCafferty or Harrington *445controls. The majority notes that the trial court observed in its opinion that the omission in the New Jersey report of the statutory subsection that Crooks violated prevented it from “determinfingl whether or not the violation was ‘of a substantially similar nature’ to our statute 75 Pa.C.S.A. § 3731”, and meant that the Bureau did not meet its “burden of proof.” (R. 55a-56a). The majority then concludes that the omission to which the trial court referred does not have “legal significance” under the due process principles that McCafferty and Harrington discussed.
I, by contrast, would give the trial court’s statements in this regard no part in the present proceedings. The predicate for invocation of this court’s direct review pursuant to 42 Pa.C.S. § 722(b)(7), which provides the jurisdictional basis for this appeal, is a declaration by the court of common pleas that a statute is unconstitutional. In my view, the issue or issues to which the trial court was alluding lie outside the scope of § 722(b)(7). That is to say, whether as the Compact requires, the New Jersey statute under which Crooks was convicted is “of a substantially similar nature” to Article IV(a)(2), see Petrovick v. Commonwealth, 559 Pa. 614, 741 A.2d 1264, 1266 (1999), or whether the Bureau failed to meet its “burden of proof’, were unrelated to the trial court’s declaration that 75 Pa.C.S. § 1584 violates due process. In Harrington, we decided that in the interest of sound jurisprudential practice, we will remand to the court of common pleas, or, where appropriate, transfer to the proper intermediate appellate court, these kinds of ancillary issues. Harrington, 763 A.2d at 393. Moreover, it is not evident to me how these issues were raised below\2 I would, therefore, remand this matter for further *446development of any ancillary issue that has been properly raised and preserved.
Accordingly, I concur with and join in that portion of the majority’s order that reverses the order of the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County, and dissent from that portion of the majority’s order that reinstates the suspension of Crooks’ driver’s license.
Justices CASTILLE and NIGRO joins this concurring and dissenting opinion.

. As noted, Crooks pursued additional grounds in his appeal. First, Crooks argued that the suspension was improper because the notice he received from the Bureau advised him that the offense he committed in New Jersey was “equivalent”, not “substantially similar” to 75 Pa.C.S. § 3731. (R. 6a). The trial court disagreed, concluding that the Bureau subjected itself to “a more strict standard than is required by the Compact” by using the word “equivalent”. Second, Crooks asserted that his conviction in New Jersey contained a civil reservation which pursuant to New Jersey Rule 3:9-2 prohibits the use of the judgment of conviction in any civil case. (R. 7a). Again, the trial court disagreed, finding that the New Jersey Rule Crooks cited does not apply to administrative proceedings.

. The issue of "substantially similar” statutes was touched upon at oral argument. When the trial court was considering what the consequences of a deficient report should be, counsel for the Bureau mentioned "that under the Scott case [the] description [on the report of the New Jersey offense that Crooks committed] has been established as being a substantially similar offense to Pennsylvania’s with regard to the guilty/not guilty plea....” (R.20a.-21a.) Counsel for Crooks pointed out that Scott had no relevance to the argument he was presenting at the moment, which went to the "reporting requirements of the Compact." (R.23a.-24a.). I note that the case to which counsel referred is *446currently pending before this court. Scott v. Commonwealth, Dep't. of Transp., 730 A.2d 539 (Pa.Cmwlth.Ct.1999), appeal granted, 2001 WL 12125 (Pa. Jan. 5, 2001).