Court Opinion

ID: 9722201
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 09:20:07.780127+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:31.863932
License: Public Domain

*1514WORK, J.
I concur with the majority opinion that the court erred in finding the Department of Motor Vehicles (Department) to be collaterally estopped by the prior municipal court proceedings in which Vary’s sentence was modified. I believe, however, the lead opinion is overly complex.
First, to the extent the majority implies there is disagreement in the case precedent as to whether the Department and district attorney were in privity as that issue relates to the facts in this case, I suggest the implication is unwarranted. Those cases finding privity between those parties are confined to legal issues, i.e., related to lawfulness of arrests and similar concerns, which were actually litigated. In those cases the issue is one in which the criminal law enforcement concerns of the State of California are represented in court by the district attorney. Although those cases (cited in the majority opinion) finding privity rely on the fact that both the district attorney and the Department represent the State of California, the plain fact is the judicial adjudication that an arrest is unlawful eliminates a latter contrary finding by the Department in an administrative proceeding. The Department is not prejudiced because the court ruling does not intrude on its statutory licensing jurisdiction, but only indirectly affects it by removing one statutory condition prerequisite to the Department’s power to suspend or revoke a license. On the other hand, those cases finding no privity between the Department and the district attorney refer to factual situations where the court attempted to directly intrude into the Department’s licensing jurisdiction or a driver attempted to rely on judicial determinations not related to guilt or innocence. (See, e.g., Skinner v. Sillas (1976) 58 Cal.App.3d 591, 595-597 [130 Cal.Rptr. 91] [where a driver pleaded guilty to drunk driving and at sentencing the district attorney stipulated there had been no refusal to submit to a chemical test to determine blood alcohol level as required by Veh. Code, § 13353, subd. (b)].) Thus, privity has always been found where a court made pertinent legal rulings such as an illegal arrest (Shackelton v. Department of Motor Vehicles (1975) 46 Cal.App.3d 327 [119 Cal.Rptr. 921]) or that certain prior convictions were constitutionally defective (Mitchell v. Orr (1969) 268 Cal.App.2d 813 [74 Cal.Rptr. 407]; Skinner v. Sillas, supra, 58 Cal.App.3d at p. 596, fn. 3). Privity has uniformly been rejected in those cases where the particular judicial findings were not necessary to determine guilt or innocence or which related purely to sentencing decisions underlying the court’s power to judicially suspend or restrict driving privileges.
Although the issue was presented to the superior court, it did not determine the validity of the prior municipal court order which in effect found Vehicle Code section 23170 to be inapplicable. In other words, by limiting *1515its holding to the issue of collateral estoppel, the superior court did not determine the issue actually raised by Vary in his petition for mandate which was whether the Department erred in its suspension because he did not have two prior offenses at the time of his 1984 convictions as required under Vehicle Code section 23170. Instead, the court relied solely on the issue of collateral estoppel which it raised during oral argument without warning to either party.
Although our reversal reinstates the Department’s order of suspension, unless it has already expired, it is clear the suspension was proper. Vary’s argument was that Vehicle Code section 23170 required a defendant to have two prior convictions. However, that statute, as it read at the time he committed the second and third offenses in 1982 and 1983, required a suspension when suffering a conviction for drunk driving within five years of two or more prior offenses of that same crime. The statute was amended effective January 1984 to substitute “two separate violations of Section 23152 or 23153, or both, which resulted in convictions” for “two prior offenses which resulted in convictions of violations of Section 23152 or 23153, or both.” Thus, the statute, as it read at the time of sentencing, was substantively the same as when Vary committed the 1982 and 1983 offenses. His conviction for the March 1983 offense, in 1984, was plainly for an offense occurring within five years of two prior offenses which resulted in convictions for Vehicle Code section 23152. The statute is silent as to the sequence of the convictions. Since the suspension mandate is to the Department to which all conviction records are sent, the problems of tracking conviction sequences for judicial sentencing purposes and overcoming a defendant’s ability to manipulate sentencings imposed in separate judicial fora is minimized. Here, the clear language of the statute requires the Department to suspend even were all three convictions entered simultaneously.
It may be relevant that Vary filed no responding brief. His request for court appointed counsel was denied because of lack of statutory authority to do so in a civil appeal from the Department of Motor Vehicles Administrative actions. Further, the three-year suspension probably has already expired and Vary is probably not terribly concerned. In any event, his application for extension of time dated September 8, 1987, states he was then just *1516entering a work furlough program. Apparently, he has transgressed again and is wrestling with a subsequent suspension.