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Watterson v. Commonwealth2/7/2003
The Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing appeals from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Chester County that denied the Bureau's motion to quash the statutory appeal of Keith R. Watterson and sustained Watterson's appeal from the Bureau's requirement that he place an ignition interlock on all vehicles he owns before it will restore his license. We affirm the trial court.
Watterson's operating privilege was suspended for three months on July 23, 1991, as a condition of his acceptance of accelerated rehabilitative disposition after he was charged with driving under the influence on March 12, 1991. Watterson's license was subsequently suspended for one year after he was convicted of driving under the influence on January 23, 2001. The trial court did not order Watterson to install an ignition interlock device as required by Section 7002(b) of the Judicial Code, 42 Pa. C.S. §7002(b). The Department, however, in a notice dated April 13, 2001, notified Watterson that, in addition to the one-year suspension of his operating privileges, he was required to install ignition interlock devices on all vehicles he owned before the Department would restore his operating privileges.
On February 28, 2002, Watterson filed an appeal from the Department's refusal to restore his license until he had complied with the Department's ignition interlock requirement. At the hearing before the trial court, the Department moved to quash the appeal on the grounds that it was untimely because, according to the Department, Watterson should have appealed as soon as he received the notice of suspension sent on April 13, 2001. Watterson claimed that he did not receive that notice because he had moved before he was sentenced for the January 23, 2001 conviction. The Department countered that it had processed a change of address for Watterson on January 11, 2001. The trial court did not decide the issue of timeliness, but instead denied the motion to quash on the grounds that only the trial court has the authority to impose the ignition interlock requirement and that the Department cannot impose it absent a court order. Schneider v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 790 A.2d 363 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2002). The Department brought this appeal.
The questions the Department presents for our review are whether the trial court erred when it denied the Department's motion to quash the appeal as untimely and whether the Department has an independent mandate to impose the ignition interlock requirement where it is not ordered by a court of common pleas.
We find no error in the trial court's nunc pro tunc consideration of the merits of Watterson's appeal, even though it may have been untimely, because, as we explain below, the requirement imposed on Watterson was imposed without the authority of the law and was void ab initio; equitable relief, if necessary, is appropriate in such an extraordinary circumstance. Criss v. Wise, 566 Pa. 437, 781 A.2d 1156 (2001).
We find that the trial court acted correctly in relying on Schneider to strike the ignition interlock requirement imposed on Watterson by the Department. In Schneider, we considered the case of a motorist who had been convicted of a second DUI offense where the court did not impose an ignition interlock requirement, but the where the Department had attempted to impose it independently. The facts are the same in the case before us. In deciding Schneider we said
Although Schneider had two DUI offenses and pursuant to Section 7002(b), the trial court was required to order installation of an ignition interlock device, that failure does not mean that PennDOT has been given authority
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