State ex rel. Weaver v. Dostert

• Decision Date: 27 January 1983
• Docket Number: No. 15744,15744
• Citation: 171 W.Va. 461,300 S.E.2d 102
• Parties: STATE of West Virginia ex rel. Roy WEAVER v. Hon. Pierre E. DOSTERT, Judge, etc.
• Court: West Virginia Supreme Court

Page 102

300 S.E.2d 102

171 W.Va. 461

STATE of West Virginia ex rel. Roy WEAVER v. Hon. Pierre E. DOSTERT, Judge, etc.

No. 15744.

Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia.

Jan. 27, 1983.

Syllabus by the Court

1. A court's grant of authority to a person to act as a bail bondsman sufficiently resembles a state license that a property right to that authority will be deemed to attach, and procedures comporting with constitutional "due process" protection must be invoked before the authority may be withdrawn.

2. W.Va.Code, 51-10-8 [1959], which describes the standards and procedures for granting authority to individuals to act as professional bail bondsmen, is not unconstitutional for failure to provide a constitutionally sufficient procedure for revoking that authority since, in the absence of such provision, courts will infer that procedures comporting with constitutional "due process" safeguards are required.

Askin & Burke and Steven M. Askin, Martinsburg, for relator.

Pierre E. Dostert, pro se.

NEELY, Justice:

Our petitioner, Roy Weaver, is a bail bondsman authorized to do business in the West Virginia counties of Jefferson, Berkeley and Morgan. By order dated 17 September 1982 Judge Pierre Dostert, Judge of the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, West Virginia, sua sponte suspended bondsman Weaver's authority to write bonds in any of these counties. Judge Dostert amended this order by an order of 23 September 1982 retracting the suspension in Berkeley County. Petitioner Weaver comes before this Court seeking a writ of prohibition staying Judge Dostert's order until a hearing is provided him. Because the petitioner was provided neither notice nor opportunity to be heard, we award the writ.

Petitioner Weaver alleges that the suspension was ordered in retaliation for his having agreed over the objections of Judge Dostert to act as surety on a bond for a particular criminal defendant. Judge Dostert in turn alleges that petitioner exceeded the $100,000.00 limitation on his authorized surety liability. The issue before this Court is not the propriety of Mr. Weaver's practices as a bail bondsman, however, but rather the procedural requirements for suspending a bail bondsman's authority to write bonds. We decline to address the merits of the respective allegations.

We have not before been called upon to decide whether a grant of authority to act as a bail bondsman pursuant to W.Va.Code, 51-10-8 [1959] vests in the bondsman a property right giving rise to any procedural requirements that must be satisfied before the authority can be suspended or withdrawn. We note further that a bondsman's authority is granted by the local courts and does not amount, technically, to a state license. We consider this a distinction without a difference, however, and hold that a court's grant of authority to a person to act as a bail bondsman sufficiently resembles a license that it must be treated as a license for the purposes of the procedural requirements attendant upon its termination.

We have held that a person has a property right to his or her driver's license that requires due process protection before suspension of the license can be effected, Jordan v. Roberts, 161 W.Va. 750, 246 S.E.2d 259 (1978), and that a licensed used car dealer is entitled to due process protection before his license is cancelled, State ex rel. Ellis v. Kelly, 145 W.Va. 70, 112 S.E.2d 641 (1960). The federal courts in West Virginia...