Marshall v. Comm'r of Motor Veh.

311 A.3d 704

348 Conn. 778

Anthony J. MARSHALL III

v.COMMISSIONER OF MOTOR VEHICLES

(SC 20703)

Supreme Court of Connecticut.

Argued October 27, 2023

Officially Released April 9, 2024

Drzislav Coric, New London, with whom was Brandon H. Marley, Groton, for the appellant (plaintiff).

Drew S. Graham, assistant attorney general, with whom, on the brief, was William Tong, attorney general, for the appellee (defendant).

Robinson, C. J., and McDonald, Mullins, Ecker and Dannehy, Js.

MULLINS, J.

[1, 2] ₇₈₁Connecticut law provides that an incident report prepared in accordance with General Statutes § 14-227b (c)¹ is admissible in an administrative proceeding to suspend a motor vehicle operator’s license without the need for testimony from the arresting officer. See Volck v. Muzio, 204 Conn. 507, 517-18, 529 A.2d 177 (1987). The question presented in this case is whether such a report is nevertheless admissible if the arresting officer fails to comply with the statute’s requirement that the officer prepare and mail² the report to the Department of Motor Vehicles (department) within three business days of the incident. In answering this question, we are mindful that license suspension hearings are not strictly bound by the rules of evidence and are aimed at expeditiously protecting the public from individuals arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs prior to any conviction. At the same ₇₈₂time, we must be cognizant of the fact that license suspension hearings seek to revoke a privilege, and, thus, the state may not revoke that privilege without furnishing the holder of the license due process as required by the fourteenth amendment to the United States constitution. See, e.g., Bell v. Burson, 402 U.S. 535, 539, 91 S. Ct. 1586, 29 L. Ed. 2d 90 (1971); see also, e.g., Fishbein v. Kozlowski, 252 Conn. 38, 50-51, 743 A.2d 1110 (1999).

[3] Our legislature balanced these concerns in § 14-227b (c) by setting forth the requirements a police report must meet to be used as evidence to suspend an operator’s license.³ We previously have ex- plained that the requirements of § 14-227b (c) provide sufficient indicia of reliability such that the report may be introduced into evidence at a license suspension hearing without the need to call the arresting officer. See Volck v. Muzio, supra, 204 Conn. at 517-18, 529 A.2d 177. Consistent therewith, we conclude that the failure to comply with the three business day preparation and mailing provision of § 14-227b (c) renders the report inadmissible in the absence of testimony from the arresting officer.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to this appeal. On July 14, 2019, Jeffrey H. Hewes, an officer with the Stonington Police Department, heard an announcement over the police radio describing a vehicle that had allegedly been involved in a hit-and ₇₈₃run accident. Shortly thereafter, he stopped a vehicle matching that description. Upon approaching the vehicle, Officer Hewes identified the plaintiff, Anthony J. Marshall III, as the driver and observed that his eyes were bloodshot, his speech was slow, and his breath smelled of alcohol. Officer Hewes requested that the plaintiff perform three standardized field sobriety tests, all of which the plaintiff failed.

Officer Hewes then arrested the plaintiff and transported him to police headquarters, where the plaintiff took two breath tests for alcohol. Those tests revealed that the plaintiff had an elevated blood alcohol content. As a result, the plaintiff was charged with operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor in violation of General Statutes § 14-227a (a).⁴ Officer Hewes prepared a report of this incident that consisted of an A-44 form and two attachments—a narrative police report and the results of the plaintiff’s breath tests.⁵ Officer Hewes initially entered the narrative police report on July 15, 2019. He later modified, completed, signed, and dated the report on July 19, 2019—five business days after the plaintiff’s arrest. The department did not receive the report until July 23, 2019.

On August 9, 2019, a department hearing officer held an administrative hearing to determine whether the ₇₈₄plaintiff’s license to operate a motor vehicle should be suspended pursuant to § 14-227b. At the hearing, the plaintiff’s attorney objected to the admission of the report on the ground that it was not prepared and mailed to the department within three business days, as required by § 14-227b (c). The hearing officer summarily overruled the objection and admitted the report, which was the only evidence submitted at the hearing.

Solely on the basis of the report, the hearing officer found that the four issues necessary to support a license suspension were satisfied, namely, (1) Officer Hewes had probable cause to arrest the plaintiff for operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, (2) the plaintiff was arrested, (3) the plaintiff submitted to breath tests for alcohol, which indicated that he had an elevated blood alcohol content, and (4) the plaintiff was operating the motor vehicle. See General Statutes § 14-227b (g) (2). Accordingly, on the basis of the hearing officer’s findings, the defendant, the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles (commissioner), suspended the plaintiff’s license to operate a motor vehicle for forty-five days and required the installation of an ignition interlock device in his vehicle for six months.

Thereafter, the plaintiff appealed from the commissioner’s decision to the Superior Court pursuant to the Uniform Administrative Procedure Act (UAPA). See General Statutes § 4-183. In that appeal, the plaintiff argued that the hearing officer abused her discretion by admitting the report into evidence because the report did not comply with the preparation and mailing requirement of § 14-227b (c). The plaintiff further argued that, because the improperly admitted report was the only evidence submitted at the administrative hearing, there was not substantial evidence on which to base the suspension of his license. The trial court rejected the plaintiff’s arguments, concluding that adherence to the ₇₈₅preparation and mailing requirement of § 14-227b (c) is not necessary for the report’s admissibility, so long as the report is "reasonably found to bear indicia of trustworthiness and reliability." Therefore, the trial court dismissed the plaintiff’s appeal.

The plaintiff appealed to the Appellate Court, again claiming that the report was improperly admitted because the police had failed to comply with the statutory preparation and mailing requirement. See Marshall v. Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, 210 Conn. App. 109, 111, 269 A.3d 816 (2022). In a divided decision, the Appellate Court affirmed the judgment of the trial court. Id., at 121, 269 A.3d 816. The majority concluded that, because § 14-227b (c) is not accompanied by any negative or prohibitory language, the preparation and mailing requirement is directory. See id., at 117-18, 269 A.3d 816. As such, it determined that strict compliance with the preparation and mailing provision of § 14-227b (c) is not necessary for a report to be admissible at a hearing to suspend an operator’s license. See id., at 116-18, 269 A.3d 816. The majority further reasoned that there were sufficient indicia of reliability to ensure that the report was both reliable and trustworthy, and, thus, the hearing officer did not abuse her discretion in admitting it. Id., at 120-21, 269 A.3d 816.

In his dissenting opinion, Judge Prescott concluded that, in the absence of testimony by the author of the report, a police report is not admissible if it fails to comply with the strictures of § 14-227b (c). Id., at 129, 269 A.3d 816 (Prescott, J., dissenting). Because the report was prepared five days after the incident, Judge Prescott would have concluded that it was inadmissible absent testimony from the arresting officer. See id., at 122-23, 129, 269 A.3d 816 (Prescott, J., dissenting). This appeal followed.⁶

[4–7] ₇₈₆We begin by articulating the applicable standard of review. "This court reviews the trial court’s judgment pursuant to the … UAPA …. Under the UAPA, it is [not] the function … of this court to retry the case or to substitute its judgment for that of the administrative agency. … Even for conclusions of law, [t]he court’s ultimate duty is only to decide whether, in light of the evidence, the [agency] has acted unreasonably, arbitrarily, illegally, or in abuse of its discretion. … Cases that present pure questions of law, however, invoke a broader standard of review than is … involved in deciding whether, in light of the evidence, the agency has acted unreasonably, arbitrarily, illegally or in abuse of its discretion. … Furthermore, when [as here] a state agency’s determination of a question of law has not previously been subject to judicial scrutiny … the agency is not entitled to special deference. … We have determined, therefore, that the traditional deference accorded to an agency’s interpretation of a statutory term is unwarranted when the construction of a statute … has not previously been subjected to judicial scrutiny [or to] a governmental agency’s time-tested interpretation …. [Thus] [t]he issue of statutory interpretation presented in this case is a question of law subject to plenary review."⁷ (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Commissioner of Emergency Services & Public Protection v. Freedom of Information Commission, 330 Conn. 372, 379-80, 194 A.3d 759 (2018).

Beginning with the language of the statute, as required by General Statutes § 1-2z, we observe that § 14-227b ₇₈₇(c) provides in relevant part: "The police officer shall prepare a report of the incident and shall mail or otherwise transmit in accordance with this subsection the report and a copy of the results of any chemical test to the Department of Motor Vehicles within three business days. The report shall contain such...