Court Opinion

ID: 9755619
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:44:32.191796+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:09.581986
License: Public Domain

PELLEGRINI, Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding that Mary Jill Brown (Licensee) had an excuse to refuse to submit to a chemical alcohol test under Section 1547(b)(1) of the Vehicle Code (Code)1 because her child was not allowed to accompany her to chemical testing.
After being stopped for an illegal turn and then failing two field sobriety tests, Licensee was' arrested for driving while intoxicated. At the time of her arrest, her four-year old child was in the back seat of her car. She was then requested to submit to chemical testing at a local hospital, to which she initially agreed, but upon learning that her child would not be accompanying her to the hospital but instead would be taken by police officers to the station while she was at the hospital, Licensee then refused to submit to chemical testing unless her child could accompany her to the hospital. Both she and the child were taken to the station, where she again refused to submit to chemical testing unless her child was taken with her to the hospital. Based on her refusals to submit to chemical testing, PennDot suspended her license for one year. Licensee appealed the suspension to the trial court which affirmed the suspension.
Analogizing this situation to where a licensee refuses to sign a hospital waiver of liability form, which we have held excuses a refusal to sign because it imposes an additional condition to testing not required by Section 1547,2 the majority reverses, concluding that Licensee’s refusal to submit to chemical testing because her child could not accompany her was also an impermissible condition. While the majority may be sympathetic to a mother who does not wish to be separated from her child, a questionable sympathy in this case for a mother who may have been jeopardizing her child’s life by driving while intoxicated, I disagree with the majority’s holding because rather than being an impermissible additional condition, being separated from a child is the normal and unavoidable consequence of being arrested, whether the arrest was driving while intoxicated, child abuse or homicide by vehicle.
Accordingly, I dissent.
Judge DOYLE joins in this dissenting opinion.

. Section 1547(b)(1) of the Code provides:
(b) Suspension for refusal. —(1) If any person placed under arrest for a violation of section 3731 (relating to driving under the influence of alcohol or controlled substance) is requested to submit to chemical testing and refuses to do so, the testing shall not be conducted but upon notice by the police officer, the department shall suspend the operating privilege of the person for a period of 12 months. 75 Pa.C.S. § 1547(b)(1).

. Conrad v. Department of Transportation, 142 Pa.Cmwlth. 642, 598 A.2d 336 (1991).