Adkins v. Cline

• Decision Date: 01 December 2004
• Docket Number: No. 31693, No. 31694.
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court
• Parties: Tommy ADKINS, Petitioner Below, Appellee, v. Jane L. CLINE, Commissioner, Division of Motor Vehicles, West Virginia Department of Transportation, Respondent Below, Appellant. Tony J. Arbaugh, Petitioner Below, Appellee, v. Jane L. Cline, Commissioner, Division of Motor Vehicles, West Virginia Department of Transportation, Respondent Below, Appellant.

607 S.E.2d 833

216 W.Va. 504

Tommy ADKINS, Petitioner Below, Appellee, v. Jane L. CLINE, Commissioner, Division of Motor Vehicles, West Virginia Department of Transportation, Respondent Below, Appellant.

Tony J. Arbaugh, Petitioner Below, Appellee, v. Jane L. Cline, Commissioner, Division of Motor Vehicles, West Virginia Department of Transportation, Respondent Below, Appellant.

Nos. 31693, 31694.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Submitted September 14, 2004.

Decided December 1, 2004.

Charles Joseph Stevens, Stevens & Stevens, Hamlin, for the Appellee.

Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., Attorney General, Janet E. James, Assistant Attorney General, Charleston, for the Appellant.

PER CURIAM.

This matter is before this Court upon consolidated appeals¹ by the Division of Motor Vehicles, West Virginia Department of Transportation (hereinafter "DMV" or "Appellant") from June 13, 2003, decisions of the Circuit Court of Lincoln County reversing the administrative drivers' license revocations of Tommy Adkins and Tony J. Arbaugh (hereinafter "Appellees") and remanding those cases to the DMV Commissioner for further proceedings. The Appellees were separately arrested for DUI and subjected to administrative license revocations by the DMV. The revocations were stayed pending appeal. Based upon the fact that criminal charges against the Appellees did not result in convictions, the Circuit Court of Lincoln County reversed the DMV's administrative license revocations and remanded for further proceedings consistent with this Court's decision in Choma v. West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles, 210 W.Va. 256, 557 S.E.2d 310 (2001). The DMV now appeals that action. Upon thorough review of the record, briefs, and applicable precedent, we affirm the decision of the lower court and permit the remand to the DMV Commissioner, as ordered by the lower court, for further evaluation and final determination of these administrative license revocation issues.

I. Factual and Procedural History

A. Tony J. Arbaugh

Appellee Arbaugh was arrested for DUI on January 1, 1994. On January 8, 1994, his license was revoked for a period of six months by DMV, with a final revocation order being entered on September 28, 1995, subsequent to Mr. Arbaugh's challenge to the revocation. On October 26, 1994, Mr. Arbaugh was acquitted of criminal charges arising from the alleged DUI. Mr. Arbaugh appealed the DMV administrative license revocation to the lower court, and, on October 5, 1995, the revocation was stayed pending a decision.

B. Tommy Adkins

Appellee Adkins was arrested on September 22, 1996, for DUI. On October 4, 1996, his license was revoked by the DMV, with a final revocation order being entered on October 31, 1997, subsequent to Mr. Adkins' challenge to the revocation. On June 4, 1998, the criminal charges arising from the alleged DUI were dismissed. Appellee Adkins appealed the license revocation to the lower court, and the revocation was stayed pending a decision.

C. Impact of Choma v. West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles

On November 28, 2001, while the stays in the Appellees' cases remained pending, this Court issued its opinion in Choma. Syllabus point three of Choma announced that the DMV Commissioner must consider the results of related criminal proceedings when determining whether to revoke an individual's driver's license. Specifically, syllabus point three provided as follows:

In administrative proceedings under W.Va.Code, 17C-5A-1 et seq., the commissioner of motor vehicles must consider and give substantial weight to the results of related criminal proceedings involving the same person who is the subject of the administrative proceeding before the commissioner, when evidence of such results is presented in the administrative proceeding.

This Court specified that the consideration requirements announced in Choma would be "prospective only." 210 W.Va. at 260 n. 4, 557 S.E.2d at 314 n. 4.

On September 18, 2002, the DMV filed a motion in the lower court to vacate the stays of license revocations for the Appellees. In substantially similar orders entered June 13, 2003, the lower court reversed the DMV license revocations for both Appellees on the grounds that Mr. Adkins had received a dismissal of the criminal charges stemming from his DUI arrest, Mr. Arbaugh had received a verdict of acquittal of the criminal charges stemming from his DUI arrest, and this Court had issued the Choma decision requiring consideration of those related criminal proceedings. The lower court also remanded the matters to the commissioner for further proceedings in conformity with the principles announced in Choma.

Appealing that decision to this Court, the DMV contends that the lower court erred in applying the requirements of Choma to cases pending on appeal when Choma was decided and that the open-ended stays of the commissioner's original revocation orders were in violation of statutory stay limitations. The DMV maintains that at the time of the 1995 and 1997 license revocations, Choma had not been decided; consequently, the DMV argues that criminal dismissal was not germane to the issue of administrative license revocation when the commissioner first encountered these cases. The DMV further argues that even if Choma applies, it holds only that the commissioner must consider the outcome of criminal charges when presented and made a part of the record. The lower court did not review any records of criminal cases or administrative proceedings. Thus, the DMV assigns the following errors: (1) the lower court erred in considering matters outside the scope of the administrative record and placing the burden of prosecuting the appeal on the DMV; and (2) the lower court erred in applying Choma retroactively.

II. Standard of Review

In syllabus point one of Chrystal R.M. v. Charlie A. L., 194 W.Va. 138, 459 S.E.2d 415 (1995), this Court explained: "Where the issue on an appeal from the circuit court is clearly a question of law or involving an interpretation of a statute, we apply a de novo standard of review." Because the issues of these cases are premised upon a question of retroactivity, we apply the de novo standard of review.

III. Discussion

A. The Open-Ended Stays

The open-ended stays ordered in these consolidated cases were in direct violation of West Virginia Code § 17C-5A-2, which at the time the stays were instituted contained a thirty-day limitation of stays in such matters and currently contains a 150-day limitation of stays.² Once these open-ended stay orders were instituted, the Appellees quite understandably made no attempt to bring these matters to a resolution. Thus, the DMV was required to carry the burden of bringing these issues to the attention of the lower court, requesting the court to vacate the stays, and then initiating this appeal when the lower court reversed the revocations and remanded to the commissioner.

During oral argument, the DMV informed this Court that several other pending cases are subject to impermissibly lengthy stays.³ Such stays cannot be permitted due to their obvious violation of statute, as well as the unreasonable delay in providing final legal resolution to these administrative revocation matters. Thus, we direct that stays of administrative license revocation proceedings in violation of the 150-day statutory limitation of West Virginia Code § 17C-5A-2 must proceed to final resolution as soon as practicable, and no additional stays in violation of such statute should be ordered.

B. Application of Choma v. West Virginia Division of Motor Vehicles

During the period in which the stays in the cases sub judice were pending, this Court decided Choma. In that opinion, this Court spoke directly to the question of prospective application in footnote four, as follows: "Our ruling is prospective only." 210 W.Va. at 260 n. 4,557 S.E.2d at 314 n. 4. Our evaluation of the present cases is therefore guided by that explicit statement in Choma. A question remains, however, regarding whether the Choma decision is to be applied, prospectively, to cases in which final determinations were yet to be made by November 28, 2001, the date of Choma's filing. In other words, a bare statement in Choma that the decision is to be applied prospectively, without accompanying explanation, leaves open the question of whether the principles announced in the opinion are to be applied (1) only to factual scenarios which have not yet arisen, i.e., acts which have not yet been performed; (2) are also to be applied where no initial administrative determination by the commissioner has been made; or (3) are also to be applied where an initial determination has been made, with an appeal pending to a circuit court. In the cases before this Court, for instance, the initial commissioner's determinations had been made prior to the Choma decision, but appeals were pending, and final determinations of the Appellees' cases had not been made prior to the decision in Choma.

In examining the Court's intent in its use of the term "prospective" in Choma, it is obvious that the Choma Court did not intend a purely prospective application since the Choma Court did indeed apply the newly announced law to the party in question in Choma. A purely prospective application is one which does not even apply the newly pronounced law to the parties to the case which resulted in the new law, as clearly explained in Ketchup v. Howard, 247 Ga.App. 54, 543 S.E.2d 371 (2000). In Ketchup, the Georgia court stated that a "purely prospective application of the principles announced herein" was being adopted and concluded as follows: "Consequently, the prospective application of this ruling will not affect the instant case." 543 S.E.2d at 379. Likewise, in Prescott v. PNC Bank Corp., 332 N.J.Super. 530, 753 A.2d 1222 (2000), the New Jersey court struggled with the disorderliness of the prospective/retroactive issue and observed as follows:

[W]here the Court believes

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