Horvath v. COM., DEPT. OF TRANSP.

• Decision Date: 04 April 2001
• Citation: 773 A.2d 199
• Parties: Stephen Arthur HORVATH, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, BUREAU OF DRIVER LICENSING.
• Court: Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court

773 A.2d 199

Stephen Arthur HORVATH, Appellant, v. COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION, BUREAU OF DRIVER LICENSING.

Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.

Submitted on Briefs December 22, 2000.

Decided April 4, 2001.

Reargument Denied June 12, 2001.

Richard J. Joyce, Pittsburgh, for appellant.

Timothy P. Wile, Asst. Counsel In-Charge and Harold H. Cramer, Asst. Chief Counsel, Harrisburg, for appellee. Before PELLEGRINI, Judge, FLAHERTY, Judge and JIULIANTE, Senior Judge.

JIULIANTE, Senior Judge.

Stephen Arthur Horvath appeals from the June 29, 2000 order of the Court of Common Pleas of Allegheny County (trial court) that denied Horvath's statutory appeal from a one-year suspension of his operating privilege imposed by the Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing (DOT). This suspension was imposed pursuant to Sections 1532(b) of the Vehicle Code, 75 Pa.C.S. § 1532(b) and Article IV(a)(2) of the Driver's License Compact of 1961 (Compact), 75 Pa.C.S. § 1581, Article IV(a)(2) (suspension of Pennsylvania operating privilege following a conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol or "substantially similar" offense in a state which is a party to the Compact).

Horvath contends: (1) that his New York conviction for driving while ability impaired (DWAI) is not substantially similar to the conduct described in Article IV(a)(2) of the Compact; (2) that the 1998 legislative enactments embodied in Sections 1584 and 1586 of the Vehicle Code, 75 Pa.C.S. §§ 1584 and 1586, are illegal unilateral amendments to the Compact; (3) that Sections 1584 and 1586 violate the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as the corresponding provisions of the Pennsylvania Constitution; and (4) that the trial court's decision was not supported by competent evidence. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

On October 9, 1999, Horvath was arrested in New York and charged with DWAI.¹ On January 9, 2000, Horvath was convicted of DWAI in a New York criminal court. New York is a party state to the Compact. Pursuant to its obligation under Article III of the Compact, New York's licensing authority reported Horvath's DWAI conviction to DOT.

Pursuant to Section 1586 of the Vehicle Code,² the Bureau found Horvath's DWAI conviction to be substantially similar to the conduct described in Article IV(a)(2) of the Compact,³ which thus required that DOT treat Horvath's conviction as if it were a conviction for violating Section 3731(a) of the Vehicle Code.⁴

On February 17, 2000, DOT notified Horvath that as required by the Compact, his New York DWAI conviction was being treated as a Section 3731 conviction and that, therefore, pursuant to Section 1532(b)(3) of the Vehicle Code,⁵ Horvath's operating privilege was being suspended for one year. Horvath filed a timely statutory appeal of his suspension to the trial court.

On June 29, 2000, the trial court held a de novo hearing at which DOT admitted into evidence a packet of documents duly certified, as statutorily required, by both DOT's Secretary and the Director of the Bureau. Included in those documents was a certified copy of Horvath's DWAI conviction, which had been received by DOT from New York.

Horvath objected to the admission of the New York conviction report on the ground that it did not comply with the reporting requirements of Article III of the Compact.⁶ In response, DOT cited the amended version of Section 1584 of the Vehicle Code, 75 Pa.C.S. § 1584, to support its position that it may rely upon the New York conviction report. DOT then rested.

Horvath did not testify or present any evidence on his behalf. Rather, Horvath relied upon Petrovick v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 559 Pa. 614, 741 A.2d 1264 (1999), where the Supreme Court ruled that New York's DWAI law was not substantially similar to Pennsylvania's driving under the influence (DUI) law found in Section 3731 of the Vehicle Code and therefore, did not provide a basis for a reciprocal suspension under Article IV of the Compact.⁷ In the present case, however, the trial court, finding newly enacted Section 1586 of the Vehicle Code to be applicable, accepted DOT's argument that New York's DWAI law was substantially similar to Pennsylvania's DUI law. Consequently, the trial court denied Horvath's statutory appeal. Horvath's timely appeal to this Court followed.⁸

Horvath's first argument is that a New York conviction for DWAI is not "of a substantially similar nature" to the conduct described in Section 1581, Article IV(a)(2). Horvath claims that the Supreme Court in Petrovick held that a New York conviction for DWAI is not a conviction for an offense which is "of a substantially similar nature" to the Article IV(a)(2) offense described as: "driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or a narcotic drug or under the influence of any other drug to a degree which renders the driver incapable of safely driving a motor vehicle" and is therefore dispositive of this issue. Horvath further claims that the addition of Section 1586 of the Vehicle Code has no effect in this case because the New York DWAI statute, which prohibits any impairment at all, is still dissimilar to the conduct described in Article IV(a)(2) of the Compact, which only prohibits impairment that would render a driver incapable of safe driving.

These precise issues were recently addressed by this Court in Squire v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 769 A.2d 1224 (Pa.Cmwlth. 2001). In Squire, this Court rejected an argument similar to that presented by Horvath in the present case, noting that the Supreme Court in Petrovick did not apply Section 1586 because it was enacted after the case was heard and was a substantive rather than procedural change.

In Petrovick, the Supreme Court stated: "Because the General Assembly did not provide for retroactive application of section 1586, and because retroactive application of this amendment would likely affect the substantive rights of [driver licensees], we cannot base our decision on this provision." 559 Pa. at 625, 741 A.2d at 1269. In view of this language, we stated in Squire:

Were there any question that the statutory amendment had the effect of mandating that the New York offense of driving while ability impaired was to be treated as substantially similar to both Pennsylvania's DUI offense and the DUI offense enumerated in Article IV(a)(2), Petrovick's retroactivity analysis eliminated such doubt. Petrovick dealt with the same New York statute at issue here. If, in fact, the statutes remained substantially dissimilar for purposes of the compact, the amendment would not—as Petrovick suggested— have affected the licensee's substantive rights.

Op. at 1226-1227.

Consequently, in Squire we concluded that in view of the recent enactment of Section 1586, New York's DWAI statute must be considered "substantially similar" to the offense enumerated in Article IV(a)(2) of the Compact. Accordingly, in the case sub judice, we must reject Horvath's contention to the contrary.

Horvath's second argument is that the recent amendment to Section 1584 of the Vehicle Code, 75 Pa.C.S. § 1584,⁹ and the enactment of Section 1586 of the Vehicle Code, 75 Pa.C.S. § 1586, are unlawful unilateral changes to the Compact. To support his position, Horvath cites Aveline v. Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, 729 A.2d 1254 (Pa.Cmwlth.1999), where this Court stated that interstate compacts are to be considered contracts between states and must be interpreted as such. In Aveline, this Court noted that a state may not "unilaterally nullify, revoke or amend one of its compacts if the compact does not so provide." Id. at 1257 n. 10.

Turning first to Section 1584, this Court agrees with DOT that the 1998 amendment to Section 1584 did not alter any provision of the Compact, which is contained in Articles I—IX of Section 1581 of the Vehicle Code, 75 Pa.C.S. § 1581. Rather, Section 1584 merely authorized DOT, acting in its capacity as the licensing authority in the driver's home state, as opposed to the convicting state, to comply with its administrative duties under Articles IV and V of the Compact even if an out-of-state conviction report omitted some pieces of information specified in Article III of the Compact.¹⁰

Horvath also cites Mazurek v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 717 A.2d 23 (Pa.Cmwlth.1998), rev'd, 563 Pa. 343, 760 A.2d 848 (2000), where this Court interpreted Article III as requiring that an out-of-state conviction report must contain all the information listed in Article III. However, our decision in Mazurek was reversed based on the Supreme Court's decision in Department of Transportation v. McCafferty, 563 Pa. 146, 758 A.2d 1155 (2000).

In rejecting the argument that the out-of-state conviction report failed to comply with the requirements of Article III, the Supreme Court reasoned that if the information that was not included "would not have provided any additional information regarding the actual conduct underlying the conviction[,]" its omission should not preclude DOT from complying with its obligations under Articles IV and V of the Compact. Id. at 162-163, 758 A.2d at 1164. Specifically, the McCafferty Court stated:

None of this information would have shed any light on the conduct underlying appellee's conviction; it is the conduct underlying the conviction that triggers PennDOT's duties under the Compact.

Finally, Article III is clearly mandatory for a party state reporting a conviction within its jurisdiction. Article III therefore imposes an obligation on PennDOT only when it is the state reporting the conduct, not when it is the home state. It does not prohibit PennDOT, as the licensing authority in the home state, from relying on the information contained in the report even if the report lacks certain information specified in

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