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Liero v. Commonwealth3/9/2004
Submitted: December 19, 2003
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing (DOT) appeals from an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County (trial court) which sustained the consolidated license suspension appeals of Matthew S. Liero (Liero) and Jarrett Carl Scott (Scott) from suspensions of their operating privileges. We affirm and remand for the reasons set forth below.
DOT suspended the driving privileges of both Liero and Scott for one year after they were convicted of Driving While Intoxicated (DWI) in New Jersey.
Liero and Scott appealed their suspensions to the trial court and, pursuant to the automatic supersedeas granted to them under Section 1550(b)(1)(i) of the Vehicle Code, neither suspension went into effect while the suspensions were on appeal.
The trial court dismissed their appeals and, on appeal to this Court, we affirmed the trial court. Thereafter, Liero and Scott filed consolidated petitions for allowance of appeal to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court granted the petitions for allowance of appeal and, on February 20, 2002, affirmed the decisions of this Court. See Scott v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Driver Licensing, 567 Pa. 631, 790 A.2d 291 (Pa. 2002).
While their appeals were pending, both Liero and Scott received several more citations for violations of the Vehicle Code. In March of 2002, after the Supreme Court issued its decision upholding Liero's and Scott's one-year suspensions for their New Jersey DWI convictions, DOT imposed the add-on suspensions which are the subject of this appeal pursuant to Section 1544 of the Vehicle Code, which provides that:
(a) Additional point accumulation.-- When any person's record shows an accumulation of additional points during a period of suspension or revocation, the department shall extend the existing period of suspension or revocation at the rate of five days for each additional point and the person shall be so notified in writing.
75 Pa.C.S. § 1544(a). Both Liero and Scott appealed these add-on suspensions to the trial court which, by order dated May 21, 2003, stated that:
The method for determining when a suspension starts is directly addressed elsewhere in the Vehicle Code.
Section 1541 states that a suspension shall commence "as provided for in section 1540." 75 Pa. C.S.A. § 1541. Section 1540(b)(3) states that "the suspension à shall be effective upon the earlier of: (i) a date determined by the department; or (ii) the date of filing or mailing of the licenseà" 75 Pa. C.S.A. § 1540(b)(3). Therefore, unless the Commonwealth determines that the suspension started at some point prior to the accumulation of these points, or the Petitioners mailed their licenses to the Commonwealth, they could not have been under suspension when the points were accumulated. There is nothing in the record that indicates that either of these conditions have occurred. Therefore, the imposition of the 'add-on' suspensions is improper.
(trial court's 5/21/2003 order, pp. 3-4). Accordingly, the trial court granted Liero's and Scott's license suspension appeals. DOT's consolidated appeals to this Court followed.
On appeal, DOT argues that the trial court erred in ruling that the points assigned to Liero's and Scott's driving records were not assigned during a period of suspension. In its brief, DOT asserts that " ccepting the trial court's rationale would amount to rewarding continued bad conduct à Such a result is antithetical to the whole concept of the remedial nature of the point system. Moreover, it amounts to a very strict cons
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