Court Opinion

ID: 9737131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:16:52.072724+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:23:56.765405
License: Public Domain

McCown, J.,
dissenting.
I concur in the holding of the majority opinion that a proper municipal ordinance may constitute reckless, and willful reckless driving separate offenses. However, I cannot concur in the conclusion that the particular ordinance here involved can properly be severed into portions. Unless it can be, the ordinance is clearly unconstitutional.
The definition sections of the traffic code of the City of Scottsbluff in themselves contain no definitions relevant here. The original provisions of section 20-295 carried the blackface type heading, “Reckless driving; prohibited.” That section provided: “No vehicle shall be driven, used, operated, parked or stopped in a careless, reckless, or negligent manner, or in such manner as to endanger or interfere with the lawful traffic or use of the streets, nor in such a manner that such motor vehicle so driven shall not be under the complete control of the driver.” The 1959 amendment merely added the words “willful reckless” and changed the order of the words to “* * * negligent, careless, reckless, or willful reckless manner, * * *.” All other portions of the section remained substantially unchanged.
Section 20-701 of the original traffic code, as indicated in the majority opinion, was a general penalty section providing for a fine of not less than $1 nor more than $100 for a violation of any provision of the entire traffic code not otherwise specified. No fines were specified anywhere else in the code. The 1959 amendments to sec*619tion 20-701 left the overall penalty provisions intact, but added to them. The additions established minimum fines for violations of section 20-295 as amended. These were: negligent driving, $5; careless driving, $15; reckless driving, $25; willful reckless driving, $50; and other provisions of such section, $5. The 1959 amendment of section 20-701 also provided minimum fines of $10 for violations of five separately designated sections involving speeding; provided a $10 minimum fine for violation of section 20-297 involving unnecessary noise; and provided for a minimum fine of $5 for a moving violation under any other provisions of the entire traffic code.
It is significant that section 20-295 was the only section of the entire traffic code for which more than one minimum fine was provided and for that section, five separate minimum fines were provided.
The majority opinion adopts the position that the 1959 amendments to the penalty section, section 20-701, are sufficient to split up, separate, and constitutionally divide section 20-295 into five or more separate and distinct traffic offenses, even though the whole section is all one sentence. That section is interpreted as though it prohibited driving or operating a vehicle in a reckless or willful reckless manner and nothing more. It also draws on the state statutes and the definitions contained in them to determine a definition of willful reckless driving. Even assuming that a proper and specific distinction may be drawn and has been drawn by state statutes between reckless driving and willful reckless driving, there is no state statute defining negligent driving, nor careless driving, nor differentiating between them. There is certainly no statute or interpretation that incorporates stopping or parking as being involved in any such definitions.
Treating the ordinance as constituting five or more separate offenses requires obliterating different words for different charges, even though they are all in one continuous sentence, and that sentencé constitutes the *620entire section. The portions of the ordinance which prohibit driving, operating, parking, or stopping a vehicle “in such manner as to endanger or interfere with the lawful traffic or use of the streets, or in such a manner that the vehicle shall not be under the complete control of the driver,” certainly run afoul of the decision in State v. Adams, 180 Neb. 542, 143 N. W. 2d 920. This is glaringly apparent where the ordinance covers not only driving or operating a vehicle, but using, parking, or stopping it as well. It should be noted that 39 sections of the Scottsbluff traffic code deal with parking, and at least 16 of them make various types of parking unlawful. There are literally dozens of sections of the code specifically defining various moving traffic violations and making them unlawful.
It would be virtually impossible to hold that section 20-295, viewed as a whole, is sufficiently explicit to inform those who are subject to it what conduct on their part will render them liable to penalty. See State v. Adams, supra.
It seems a strained construction indeed to lift out the words of the ordinance “reckless, or willful reckless,” limit them to driving or operation of a vehicle, and then ignore the rest of the sentence and section. This treatment makes the words “negligent” and “careless” disappear, as well as the words “used,” “parked,” and “stopped.” The clauses which deal with endangering or interfering with lawful traffic or use of the streets and not having the vehicle under complete control likewise disappear like magic. Yet, it is only by such wrenching that it can be said that it is not necessary to determine whether the other offenses apparently specified in the ordinance in the same section and in the same sentence, are valid and effective. Under such a construction, the particular offense charged determines which words of the sentence and section shall be ignored and which shall be applied.
A statute which forbids the doing of an act in terms *621so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application, violates the first essential of due process of law. Heywood v. Brainard, 181 Neb. 294, 147 N. W. 2d 772.
The issue here was the constitutionality of the specific ordinance as it existed and not whether a properly drawn municipal ordinance might constitutionally distinguish between reckless driving and willful reckless driving and constitute them separate offenses. Section 20-295 should be construed as a whole, and should be declared unconstitutional.