Court Opinion

ID: 9647908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:54:56.578015+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:23:59.005826
License: Public Domain

ROBERT M. BELL, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Contrary to the majority’s view, I believe that dismissal is the proper sanction for violation of that provision of Maryland Transportation Code Ann. § 16-205.1 (1987, 1991 Cum.Supp.), which requires the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA) to schedule an administrative hearing to challenge a suspension order within thirty days of its receipt of a request for hearing. Certainly, the sanction is not “postponement” of the administrative hearing, pursuant to § 16—205.1(f)(5)(iii) 1 and, whenever necessary, extending the temporary driver’s license issued to a *472driver detained for suspicion of drunk driving,2 as successfully argued by MVA.
I agree with much of the majority’s analysis. It is correct that § 16-205. l(f)(5)(i)3 imposes a mandatory scheduling duty on MVA, but is silent as to the sanction for noncompliance. I do not challenge the majority’s description of the statutory scheme—the Legislature prescribed a maximum period of 45 days, the life of the temporary license, to accommodate the request (including delivery time) for, scheduling of, and conduct of an administrative hearing at which a driver may challenge the order of suspension issued to him. See § 16-205.1(b)(3)(v)l. Nor do I quarrel with the majority’s statement of the statute’s purpose; I concede that it was enacted primarily for protection of the public, rather than the driver.
*473The majority and I also agree upon the appropriate sanction for violation of the statutory scheme: dismissal. The difference between us is the timing of, and trigger for, that sanction. The majority, as does MVA, acknowledges that if a driver is deprived of the privilege to drive for even one day prior to a timely requested hearing, he or she will have been prejudiced, without due process, and, thus, entitled to have the order of suspension dismissed. But they both also assert that it is § 16-205.1(f)(5)(iii)24 that provides the sanction for violation of the scheduling provision.
There is no doubt but that, so long as the request is postmarked ten days or less after issuance of the order of suspension,5 MVA is required to set a hearing within thirty days of receipt. § 16-205.1(f)(5)(i). Compare § 16-205.-l(f)(b)(ii). Relying on the life of the temporary license issued pursuant to § 16-205.1(b)(3) and legislative history,6 specifically letters from Assistant Attorney General Katherine M. Rowe and Colonel Joseph Cooke of the Baltimore City Police Department concerning, respectively, the validity of the summary suspension provisions and Nevada’s experience with similar legislation,7 the majority concludes that “the 45 day period was contemplated as part of an overall administrative plan,” at 465, and that “[cjlearly, ... the General Assembly intended that the hearing be held within 45 days from the driver's suspension.” At 466. *474MVA concedes, and the majority agrees, that if the hearing is initially scheduled more than 45 days after detention and the temporary license is not extended, then dismissal is the proper sanction. Because, however, the purpose of the legislation is primarily to benefit the public, rather than the driver and, in this case, the violations caused only a one or two day delay in scheduling and holding the hearings, which, nevertheless, were held within 45 days, they say that the mere violation of the mandatory scheduling provision does not require the dismissal sanction.
Construing the statutory scheme as contemplating that hearings would be scheduled within 45 days of the issuance of the order of suspension, as opposed to within 30 days of receipt of a request for hearing, does not promote expeditious hearings and, moreover, is productive of potentially illogical results. MVA need not comply with the 30 day scheduling requirement in the case of drivers whose requests for hearings are received less than 15 days from detention; it could schedule those hearing after 30 days, but still within 45 days. On the other hand, timely requests received on the 15th day would have to be honored within 30 days, or be dismissed; failure to schedule within 30 days would mean that the temporary license would have expired. In the former case, a violation would result in no sanction; in the latter, a violation of the same length would require dismissal. It is not at all clear that the Legislature intended that MVA set a hearing at any time within the 45 day period rather than within the 30 day mandatory scheduling period, whatever the timing of its receipt of the request for hearing.
Issuance of a 45 day temporary license ensures, whether the request for a hearing is made on the first day, or on the tenth day, allowing for necessary postal delivery, that MVA will have 30 days in which to schedule the hearing. The majority does not dispute that this is so, but says that the administrative scheme does not permit dismissal where there is non-compliance so long as the hearing is scheduled within the life of the temporary license, within 45 days. *475Consequently, as the majority sees it, when a hearing is requested is irrelevant as long as the hearing is held, or even scheduled, in 45 days, and MVA determines that it cannot hold it within 30 days of the request. Had the Legislature intended that hearings be scheduled within 45 days, rather than 30, it could easily have said so. Certainly, it would have taken very little effort to add a few extra words, such as, “or in any event within the 45 day period.” In any event, that the Legislature contemplated holding a requested hearing in the ordinary course, sometime within a 45 day period, depending upon when the request is received, does not mean that it also intended MVA to disregard the legislatively prescribed, clear and unambiguous mandatory 30 day scheduling provision.
Given the legislation’s purpose, it is unlikely that the Legislature intended that the entire 45 day life of a temporary license, or even most of it, would be used, as a matter of course, in every, or virtually every, case. To the contrary, I suspect that it intended that, only in the unusual case, where the request is received after the 10th day, thus requiring scheduling of the hearing toward the end of the 45 day period, would it be necessary that most, or all, of the life of the temporary license be utilized; only a request made on the 10th day, and received by MVA on the 15th day, could consume the entire 45 day life of the temporary license. It is safe to assume, I believe, that the Legislature’s preference would be to have the hearing scheduled, and held, and, possibly, the driver removed from the road, all prior to expiration of the temporary license. Thus, consistent with the legislation’s primary purpose to protect the public, expedition in scheduling and in holding a hearing is to be encouraged.
MVA argues that § 16—205.l(f)(iii)2 is the sanction for failing to schedule a hearing within 30 days. That section provides that if the case is postponed because MVA cannot provide the hearing, the period during which the detained person is authorized to drive is extended. MVA then stays the suspension and issues a temporary license. § 16-205. *476l(f)(5)(v). See also COMAR 11.11.03.08A. Critical to this argument is defining “postponement” so as to permit MVA initially to schedule the hearing more than 30 days after receipt of the hearing request. The argument is simply wrong.
Interpreting “postponement”, as used in § 16-205.-l(f)(5)(iii), as broadly as the majority does gives it a strained meaning, one not consistent with its ordinary and common signification. See State v. Bricker, 321 Md. 86, 92, 581 A.2d 9, 12 (1990); Harford County v. The University, 318 Md. 525, 529, 569 A.2d 649, 651 (1990); NCR Corp. v. Comptroller, 313 Md. 118, 124-125, 544 A.2d 764, 767, 767 (1988); Jones v. State, 304 Md. 216, 220, 498 A.2d 622, 624 (1985); Mayor & City Council of Baltimore v. Hackley, 300 Md. 277, 283, 477 A.2d 1174, 1177 (1984); Schweitzer v. Brewer, 280 Md. 430, 438, 374 A.2d 347, 352 (1977). The term “postponement” involves more than a mental exercise; at the very least it implies that there has been a previously scheduled date from which the present one is being put off, deferred or delayed. See Black’s Law Dictionary 1168 (6th Ed.1990). This is supported by § 16—205.l(f)(5)(iii)l and 3: as a matter of initial scheduling, it could hardly be expected that subparagraph 1 could occur—without being apprised of an initial date, one can hardly be expected to agree to change it—nor, without a date set for which subpoenas have been issued, could the circumstances of subparagraph 3 be expected to have occurred.
There is another reason that I do not believe the Legislature intended that MVA’s unilateral failure promptly to schedule the hearing within the mandated period be included in the term “postponement.” When a hearing has been scheduled within the prescribed period, it may be postponed, of course, but only by the administrative law judge assigned to conduct it. Unilateral action by MVA is inconsistent with the administrative law judge’s role in the process.8
*477By adopting MVA’s argument, the majority endorses an interpretation of the statutory scheme that is inimicable to the public interest and the statutory purpose. Under it, MVA, on its own and without any possibility of appellate review of the decision, may schedule the hearing, in total disregard of the legislatively mandated scheduling requirement, and hold it well beyond the 45 day period; all it need do is assert that it cannot provide the hearing within the time required. In fact, this argument allows MVA to determine unilaterally that it is unable to hold the hearing, in the time prescribed, in advance of its being scheduled and give itself a “postponement.” Moreover, having given itself a “postponement,” MVA is permitted to issue a temporary license which will be valid until it finds it convenient to hold the hearing. And because only MVA decides whether it can provide the hearing and can extend the period during which a driver may continue to drive, the statutory interpretation espoused by the majority encourages the extension of the driving privilege of those detained for drunk driving. While in this case, the delay was one or two days beyond the 30th day and within the 45 day period, it is fortuitous that it was so short; it could be much longer. The long and short of it is, therefore, that, solely on MVA’s unreviewed, and unreviewable, assertion that it cannot provide a hearing in a timely fashion, a drunk driver may be permitted to drive indefinitely. Certainly, the Legislature did not intend that.
By enacting 16-205. l(f)(5)(iii), the Legislature simply recognized that, once a hearing has been set timely, MVA, may not be able to provide it on the date set;9 thus, it allowed *478for postponement, consistent with due process. It is an amazing leap from this to the use of that provision as an initial scheduling tool and an even bigger one to the proposition that MVA and MVA alone, determines whether, and when, it can provide the required administrative hearing or that the statutory scheme “sanctions” the disregard of the mandatory scheduling provision with impunity.10
Requiring MVA to extend the right to drive of a driver presumed to be a drunk driver is not an appropriate sanction for a violation of the scheduling provision. It does not encourage MVA to act more expeditiously. It does punish the public by permitting that driver to drive for a longer period. And what’s worse, the period can be extended indefinitely, in MVA’s sole, unreviewable discretion. There is no guidance given by the statute as to what constitutes a sufficient basis for the conclusion that MVA cannot provide a hearing. It must be recalled that it is MVA that determines its own inability and extends the driving privilege. As the majority interprets the statutory scheme, what it characterizes as a sanction gives MVA the unfettered right to extend indefinitely the driving privileges of a driver awaiting a suspension hearing; indeed, MVA, and MVA alone, determines both when the hearing will be initially scheduled and whether there can ever be a sanction.
MVA has successfully argued that it would be ludicrous to go through a subterfuge, i.e., set a hearing that it knows *479will have to be postponed. That argument is based upon a faulty premise. It assumes that MVA’s determination that the hearing could not be held within the prescribed period is objectively accurate, when, in fact, we just don’t know that that is so. But even if it were a subterfuge and that it is ludicrous, it is not for MVA or, for that matter, this Court to countermand the Legislature, which must be presumed to have understood what it was doing, and to have meant to do it. The Legislature, in mandatory terms, required that an administrative hearing be set within 30 days of a hearing request and, further, that a postponement, in its commonly understood sense, coupled with an extension of the temporary license, if necessary, must be obtained in the event the hearing cannot be held. Its mandate is clear. There is no need or justification for ignoring it.11
Although I start from the same premise, I emphasize the need for compliance with the mandatory scheduling provision, rather than that provision that permits extension of the temporary license. The latter is, to my mind, important only when it is objectively demonstrable that MVA cannot provide a hearing within the time prescribed. Focusing on the scheduling requirement and sanctioning its violation by dismissing the suspension order has the virtue of requiring MVA to comply with the legislatively mandated scheduling provision, rather than encouraging its disregard, of emphasizing promptness, rather than delay, and of furthering the public interest. The majority’s argument that, so long as a hearing is held within 45 days, the maximum life of the temporary license, or such period thereafter during which a driver’s privilege to drive is extended by MVA gives MVA unreviewable discretion to allow a driver to continue to drive until MVA decides that it is time to hold a hearing. This is in derogation of the Legislature’s concern with *480limiting the period during which that driver is permitted to drive.
Nor am I persuaded by the majority’s argument that, to justify dismissal, a driver must show prejudice. Again, the primary beneficiary of the statutory scheme is the public, not the drivers. Looking “to the purpose of the rule or statute in either of the circumstances of its violation to determine the appropriate sanction for violation of its provisions,” Gaetano v. Calvert County, 310 Md. 121, 126, 527 A.2d 46, 48 (1987), makes clear that the critical consideration is not prejudice, but whether the sanction furthers the legislation’s purpose. Viewed from the correct perspective, i.e., “the consequences of the non-compliance in light of the totality of the circumstances,” Gaetano, 310 Md. at 127, 527 A.2d at 48, I believe the answer is obvious. Unless the sanction for failure to set an administrative hearing within the mandatory time period prescribed by § 16-205. l(f)(5)(i) is dismissal, MVA will have no incentive to comply with the legislative mandate; it will continue to ignore the scheduling provision and, when necessary, to extend the life of the temporary license.12 The dismissal sanction ensures not only expeditious scheduling of a hearing, but also that MVA will apply the statute so that hearings will be held in the shortest possible time.
Judges ELDRIDGE and CHASANOW have authorized me to state that they join in the views expressed herein.

. That section provides:
A postponement of a hearing described under this paragraph shall extend the period for which the person is authorized to drive if:
1. Both the person and the Administration agree to the postponement;
2. The Administration cannot provide a hearing within the period required under this paragraph; or
3. Under circumstances in which the person made a request, within 10 days of the date that the order of suspension was served under this section, for the issuance of a subpoena under § 12-108 of this article except as time limits are changed by this paragraph:
A. The subpoena was not issued by the Administration;
B. An adverse witness for whom the subpoena was requested, and on whom the subpoena was served not less than 5 days before the hearing described under this paragraph, fails to comply with the subpoena at an initial or subsequent hearing described under this paragraph held within the 45-day period; or
C. A witness for whom the subpoena was requested fails to comply with the subpoena, for good cause shown, at an initial or subsequent hearing described under this paragraph held within the 45-day period after the issuance of the order of suspension.

. Section 16-205.1(f)(5)(v) addresses the situation when the postponement results in a deferral of the hearing beyond the 45th day and, so, it contemplates that MVA will “issue a temporary license." As we shall see, however, the majority endorses a definition of postponement, espoused by MVA, which allows the hearing date to be set, initially, beyond the life of the temporary license. Consistent with that definition, MVA promulgated an administrative regulation apparently giving themselves authority to extend the temporary license:
"A. Scheduling.
(1) A hearing shall be provided by the Administration within the time periods required in Transportation Article, § 16-205.1, Annotated Code of Maryland.
(2) If the Administration cannot provide a hearing within the time periods required by Transportation Article, § 16-205.1 and the suspension period has not begun by the time the hearing is provided, or the Administration stays the suspension under Regulation .04A(2), the Administration or Administrative Law Judge may not dismiss the case.
(3) If the Administration cannot provide a hearing within the time periods required by Transportation Article, § 16-205.1, and the suspension period has begun as a result of the Administration’s delay or oversight, the case shall be dismissed.”
COMAR 11.11.03.08A.

. That section, in pertinent part, provides: "If the person requests a hearing at the time of or within 10 days after the issuance of the order of suspension ... the Administration shall set a hearing for a date within 30 days of the receipt of the request.”

. See note 1.

. The 1990 amendment to the statute extending the time for the request for administrative hearing to thirty days does not apply to the cases sub judice.

. The legislative history utilized by the majority is, in my opinion, inappropriate for the purpose for which it is offered. There is no dispute concerning the meaning of § 16-205.1(f)(5)(i) nor, for that matter, § 16-205.l(f)(5)(iii)2. It is disputed, however, that the latter provision provides a sanction for violation of the scheduling provision. The legislative history to which the majority refers does not bear on that question.

. The Cooke letter simply recognizes that a 45 day temporary license is administratively more palatable than one for seven days.

. Maryland Transportation Code Ann. § 12-104(e)(l) authorizes MVA to “delegate to the Office of Administrative Hearings the power and *477authority under the Maryland Vehicle Law to conduct hearings under this article____” An administrative law judge is in the Office of Administrative Hearings. It is undisputed that that office was conducting the hearings at all times relevant to the case sub judice. See also COMAR 11.11.03.02A(1) and COMAR 11.11.03.08A.

. It is difficult, at best, to determine in advance of a case being called, whether MVA will be able to provide a hearing in that case. That more cases are set than MVA is used to trying on any given day does *478not mean that all may not be accommodated or that the particular one at issue will not be reached. Indeed, it is conceivable that, when faced with the immediacy of the hearing, the party requesting it may opt not to insist that it be held. In any event, it is necessary, in my view, that there be some ability to review MVA's contention that it was unable to hold the hearing.

. The scheduling provision is clear and unambiguous and mandatory; nevertheless, the majority interprets the legislative scheme so as to render that mandatory, clear and unambiguous provision nugatory. In so doing, it violates an important canon of statutory construction. See Newman v. Subsequent Injury Fund, 311 Md. 721, 723, 537 A.2d 274, 275 (1988); Kaczorowski v. City of Baltimore, 309 Md. 505, 511, 525 A.2d 628, 631 (1987); Management Personnel Services, Inc. v. Sandefur, 300 Md. 332, 341, 478 A.2d 310, 314 (1984).

. The fact that the MVA promulgated an administrative rule which codifies its interpretation of the appropriate sanction does not bind this Court. See Maryland Regs.Code Title 11, § 11.03.08(A) (1991). In fact, I believe that, because it seeks to, and does, change the legislative intent as expressed, it is invalid.

. There is Maryland case law supporting the proposition that dismissal is the appropriate sanction for non-compliance with a mandatory time requirement in a statute. See In re James S., 286 Md. 702, 410 A.2d 586 (1980), State v. Hicks, 285 Md. 310, 403 A.2d 356 (1979) and U.S. Coin Etc. v. Director of Finance, 279 Md. 185, 367 A.2d 1243 (1977). Hicks makes the point quite clearly that the sanction of dismissal is designed to ensure compliance with an unambiguously mandatory time requirement. 285 Md. at 316-18, 403 A.2d at 359-60.