Court Opinion

ID: 9710651
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 04:14:06.280907+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:58.775415
License: Public Domain

Morse, J.,
dissenting. Consider these facts: Jackie is a young woman who has suffered for years from severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from beatings by her former husband. On several occasions she has attempted suicide by taking drug overdoses or slashing her arms and legs. To deal with future emergencies, Jackie and her treating psychiatrist have established a “support list” made up of her therapist and five or six of Jackie’s friends whom she can call day or night if she is ever in trouble.
One such evening occurs in early August 1995. She had been diagnosed earlier that day with breast cancer. Her diabetes had been getting worse for several days. Her former husband had just paid her a visit. It seemed to Jackie as though “everything [had come] to a head on that day” and that she simply “couldn’t cope.” She called her therapist. He was out of town. She tried several other people on her support list. They were unreachable. Finally, at midnight, Jackie reached her old friend and employer, Robby Pollander, who was also a member of the support team.
Pollander could tell from her voice that Jackie was “in trouble.” Indeed, he “felt that Jackie’s life was at risk.” Taking his dog with him for company, he started to drive to Jackie’s house in Lyndonville. Although he had consumed several beers, he didn’t believe that his ability to drive was impaired. Nevertheless, he was stopped en route by a police officer who had observed him rapidly accelerate from forty *310to sixty and then back to forty miles per hour in a fifty mile per hour zone. The officer smelled alcohol on Pollander’s breath and transported him to the station. Once there he declined the assistance of a lawyer and was administered a breath test. It registered over the legal limit of .08 percent.
When Pollander ultimately went to Jackie’s house, he found her conscious but in a seemingly “blank” state. Suddenly she went into convulsions and fell to the floor. Pollander called 911 and an emergency medical team arrived shortly thereafter. One member of the EMT told him that his quick action had probably saved Jackie’s life.
Pollander was later tried on criminal DUI (driving under the influence) charges. Jackie, the arresting officer, and Pollander himself all provided undisputed testimony at trial concerning the events outlined above. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty. In a subsequent administrative license-suspension hearing, however, the trial court refused to permit Pollander to introduce the same evidence, found that all of the elements of the offense of DUI had been established by a preponderance of the evidence, and entered judgment for the State.
These are the real, undisputed facts of this case. Yet one would never know from reading the Court’s opinion the injustice this matter poses. Indeed, it is the Court’s failure to focus on the facts that leads, in my view, to its erroneous conclusion that Pollander’s purpose in driving on the evening in question was irrelevant to his license suspension. Quite to the contrary, there is virtually no evidence that the Legislature, in providing for administrative suspensions, intended to deprive an individual of the traditional, common law defense of “necessity,” the principle that a violation of law may be justified to serve a greater public interest, in this case to preserve a human life. See State v. Warshow, 138 Vt. 22, 27, 410 A.2d 1000, 1003 (1979) (Hill, J., concurring) (necessity defense recognizes that there are circumstances “where the value protected by the law is eclipsed by a superseding value, and that it would be inappropriate and unjust to apply the usual criminal rule”). Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.*
*311The Court’s conclusion that evidence of Pollander’s purpose in driving on the night in question was properly excluded rests upon its interpretation of 23 V.S.A. § 1205(g). That section provides that “[t]he issues at the [suspension] hearing shall be limited to the following. . . .” The statute then sets forth the five elements that the State must prove by a preponderance of the evidence: (1) whether the officer had reasonable grounds to believe the person was operating or in control of a vehicle; (2) whether the officer informed the person of the consequences of taking or refusing to take the alcohol test; (3) whether the person refused to permit the test, or (4) whether the test was taken and the results showed an alcohol concentration of .08 percent or higher; and (5) whether the person was properly advised of the rights set forth in § 1202.
Noting that the necessity defense is not among the issues listed in § 1205(g), the Court concludes that the Legislature must have intended to exclude it, and therefore that Pollander’s evidence did not matter. The Court’s reasoning is mistaken in several respects. First, it misapplies the interpretive principle of “expressio unius est exclusio alterius” (the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another). See In re Verburg, 159 Vt. 161, 165, 616 A.2d 237, 239 (1992). As one court has explained, the “well established rule of statutory construction provides that the expression of one or more items of a class indicates an intent to exclude all items of the same class which are not expressed.” Pima County v. Heinfeld, 654 P.2d 281, 282 (Ariz. 1982) (emphasis added); see also In re Downer’s Estate, 101 Vt. 167, 177, 142 A. 78, 82 (1928) (“This maxim properly applies only when in the natural association of ideas in the mind of the reader that which is expressed is so set over by way of strong contrast to that which is omitted . . . .”). Each of the five issues set forth in § 1205(g) represents an element that the State must prove by a preponderance of the evidence. The statute makes no mention whatsoever of any defenses that may be asserted at the hearing. Thus, the only inference that we may reasonably draw from the maxim is that the Legislature *312intended the factors set forth in § 1205(g) to represent the entirety of the State’s burden.
In addition, we have repeatedly “emphasized that the precept [of expressio unius] ... is only one aid to . . . interpretation and must give way to others in appropriate cases.” Verburg, 159 Vt. at 166, 616 A.2d at 239; see also Oxx v. Department of Taxes, 159 Vt. 371, 375, 618 A.2d 1321, 1324 (1992) (The maxim “is relatively weak among rules of statutory construction.”); Clymer v. Webster, 156 Vt. 614, 625, 596 A.2d 905, 912 (1991) (maxim of expressio unius should be applied with caution and is not conclusive as to statute’s meaning). Indeed, courts and commentators alike have noted the weakness of a maxim premised on the assumption that all omissions in legislative drafting are deliberate. As one federal court has observed, “[t]his maxim is increasingly considered unreliable ... for it stands on the faulty premise that all possible alternative or supplemental provisions were necessarily considered and rejected by the legislative draftsmen.” National Petroleum Refiners Ass’n v. Federal Trade Comm’n, 482 F.2d 672, 676 (D.C. Cir. 1973); see also Director v. Bethlehem Mines Corp., 669 F.2d 187, 197 (4th Cir. 1982) (“The maxim is to be applied with great caution and is recognized as unreliable.”); R. Posner, Statutory Interpretation - in the Classroom and in the Courtroom, 50 U. Chi. L. Rev. 800, 813 (1983) (canon based upon assumption of “legislative omniscience ... is not helpful”). The State has not adduced, nor has research uncovered, any evidence in the legislative history of § 1205(g) that the Legislature even considered, much less resolved to abrogate, any affirmative defenses.
Caution in applying the maxim is particularly advised when the result is to eliminate a longstanding common law doctrine such as the necessity defense. See State v. Hastings, 801 P.2d 563, 564 (Idaho 1990) (“Necessity as a defense has a long history,” appearing in early English cases); State v. Tate, 505 A.2d 941, 948 (N.J. 1986) (Handler, J., dissenting) (“provision for necessity-justification encapsulates a criminal defense that has long been recognized at common law”). As noted, the doctrine “proceeds from the appreciation that, as a matter of public policy, there are circumstances where the value protected by the law is eclipsed by a superseding value.” Warshow, 138 Vt. at 27, 410 A.2d at 1003 (Hill, J., concurring).
The defense has been recognized in a variety of circumstances, not all involving heinous offenses. In State v. Messler, 562 A.2d 1138, 1140-42 (Conn. App. Ct. 1989), for example, the court held that a defendant charged with speeding had the right to present the defense *313of necessity where he claimed that he had sped up to pass other cars and thereby allow a police officer in pursuit of another car to pass him. And in a case closely on point, this Court has held that a defendant was entitled to raise the defense to a charge of driving under the influence where she claimed that she had been assaulted and was driving herself to the hospital. See State v. Shotton, 142 Vt. 558, 561-62, 458 A.2d 1105, 1105-06 (1983). We have also recognized that the defense may be raised in a civil proceeding, holding that a trespass may be justified by the trespasser’s immediate need to seek shelter from a sudden storm. See Ploof v. Putnam, 81 Vt. 471, 475, 71 A. 188, 189 (1908). As the Court in Ploof observed, “[t]his doctrine of necessity applies with special force to the preservation of human life.” Id.
We have repeatedly stated, moreover, that principles deeply ingrained in the common law will not be overturned by statute absent clear and unambiguous language to that effect. See Swett v. Haig’s, Inc., 164 Vt. 1, 5, 663 A.2d 930, 932 (1995) (“Words of doubtful meaning do not change common law rules; the intent to do so must be expressed in clear and unambiguous language.”); Estate of Kelley v. Mogul’s, Inc., 160 Vt. 531, 533, 632 A.2d 360, 362 (1993) (“‘[Rjules of the common law are not to be changed by doubtful implication, nor overturned except by clear and unambiguous language.’”) (quoting E.B. & A.C. Whiting Co. v. City of Burlington, 106 Vt. 446, 464, 175 A. 35, 44 (1934)).
Because § 1205(g) does not foreclose the time-honored defense of necessity in “clear and unambigous language,” I am unable to conclude that the Legislature intended to preempt its use. Indeed, it is extraordinary to believe that the Legislature harbored an intent to deprive defendant of his driver’s license for what he did in these circumstances.
Accordingly, I would reverse the judgment of the trial court.

 Contrary to the Court’s assertion, the urgency confronting defendant was clear and unambiguous. It is true, as the Court observes, that Jackie did not expressly state that she intended to Mil herself. I was not aware, however, that such a statement was a necessary precondition to suicide. When one receives a telephone call from a friend who is distraught and who has twice previously attempted suicide, it is not unreasonable to infer that she may try again. Indeed, the support list was designed precisely for these circumstances. The Court also notes that defendant did not immediately decide to visit *311Jackie that evening. The Court fails to mention, however, that defendant changed his mind after reflecting on Jackie’s “two previous attempts to take her life and how distraught she sounded on the telephone.” Subsequent events proved defendant’s concern to be well founded. Nor, finally, was it necessarily unreasonable for defendant to decline to bring his wife on such an urgent mission, at 2:00 in the morning, particularly when he considered it his personal responsibility. Certainly a jury was entitled to hear the evidence and decide for itself whether defendant’s actions were necessary under the circumstances.