Burri v. Campbell
| Decision Date | 07 December 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 8980,8980 |
| Parties | Shirley June BURRI, by her next friend Delane C. Carpenter, and Ethlyn G. Burri, Petitioners, v. David H. CAMPBELL, Superintendent, Motor Vehicle Division, and D. J. Hastings, Director of Financial Responsibility Section, Motor Vehicle Division, Respondents. |
| Court | Arizona Supreme Court |
Anthony B. Ching, Staff Atty., Legal Aid Society of Pima County Bar Assn., Tucson, for petitioners.
Darrell F. Smith, Atty. Gen., and George Ridge, Jr., Asst. Atty. Gen., Phoenix, for respondents.
Petitioners made application to this Court for an original writ of mandamus and injunction directed against the respondents, the Superintendent of the State Motor Vehicle Division and the Director of the Financial Responsibility Section. Oral arguments on the matter were held and, after due consideration, this Court granted the alternative writ of mandamus. It was further ordered that both parties would have time in which to file additional memoranda with the Court.
Petitioner Shirley June Burri is the holder of an Arizona driver's license and petitioner Ethlyn G. Burri, her mother, is the owner of an automobile registered and licensed in Arizona. On February 1, 1967, Shirley June Burri was driving her mother's automobile in Tucson, at which time she was involved in an accident with another automobile. Both vehicles were damages as a result of the collision. It later developed that neither the daughter nor her mother had liability insurance.
Respondents have notice to Shirley June Burri that her driver's license would be suspended, and to Ethlyn G. Burri that the registration certificate and the license plates of the automobile would be suspended unless a financial responsibility bond of $172 was posted, together with proof of future insurance. The notice also stated that a bond would not have to be posted if evidence of release or other compromise can be secured and filed with the respondents. Petitioners then engaged the services of an attorney who wrote to respondents requesting an administrative hearing for the petitioners, with the further request that the hearing be held in Tucson, Arizona, the residence of the petitioners.
On April 4, 1967, a hearing date was set for April 14, 1967 at 2 p.m. in the office of the Superintendent, Motor Vehicle Division, Financial Responsibility Section in Phoenix, Arizona. The respondents were served the petition and order to show cause on April 7, 1967. Since we granted the alternative writ of mandamus on May 9, 1967, the State has maintained 'status quo ante,' and the petitioners have continued their driving and operating rights.
It is petitioners' contention that it is arbitrary, unreasonable and capricious, and thus violative of due process of law for respondents to require the holding of administrative hearings under A.R.S. § 28--1122, subsec. A only in Phoenix, Arizona. The statute reads:
Pursuant to this authority, the Superintendent issued General Order No. 68, last amended in 1964. Included in the rules and regulations governing hearings were the following provisions:
To support their contention that it is arbitrary, unreasonable and capricious to require that all hearings be held in Phoenix, petitioners argue that in their case it would be more convenient and less costly if the hearing were held in Tucson. They cite as authority in support of their position the case of National Labor Relations Board v. Prettyman, 117 F.2d 786 (6th Cir. 1941). There a hearing scheduled for Ann Arbor, Michigan was removed to Washington, D.C., in response to a proper petition. The Court of Appeals held that the National Labor Relations Board did not have unlimited discretion in fixing the place of hearing and struck down the action as unreasonable and arbitrary. Petitioners also cite the case of Jeffries v. Olesen, 121 F.Supp. 463 (S.D.Cal.1954). There the court held that the postoffice department denied due process to the petitioners by holding a hearing in Washington instead of Los Angeles, the home of petitioners. Neither of these cases persuade us that the petitioners' constitutional rights have been denied them in this case. It is a settled principle of law that official acts of public officers are presumed to be correct and legal, in the absence of clear and convincing evidence to the contrary. United States ex rel. .harris v. Ragen, 177 F.2d 303 (7 Cir. 1949); Hull v. Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Co., 177 F.2d 217 (7 Cir. 1949). See also, Schecter v. Killingsworth, 93 Ariz. 273, 380 P.2d 136 (1963). The weight of authority would seem to be that wide discretion is given administrative officials in determining matters such as the place for conducting hearings within a state. See National Labor Relations Board v. Southwestern Greyhound Lines, 126 F.2d 883 (8th Cir. 1942); Southern Garment Mfrs. Ass'n v. Fleming, 74 App.D.C. 228, 122 F.2d 622 (1941); Brotherhood of Railroad Train. v. Chicago, M., St. P. & P.R. Co., 237 F.Supp. 404 (D.C.D.C.1964); Gottlieb v. Schaffer, 141 F.Supp. 7 (S.D.N.Y.1956); Jeffries v. Olesen, supra. We are of the opinion that the setting of the date and place for hearings by the...
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...that even the Arizona act, as stated in Schecter v. Killingsworth, 93 Ariz. 273, 380 P.2d 136, and amplified in Burri v. Campbell, 102 Ariz. 541, 543, 434 P.2d 627, 629, would pass the Goldberg test of constitutional due process.16 We do not mean that a report by an attorney for the injured......
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