Drivers on state blacklist file suit

PHOTOGRAPHER: Marlene Kennedy

Whether the state Department of Motor Vehicles had the statutory authority to deny new licenses to “persistently dangerous drivers” was debated in state court Friday morning.

At issue were regulations adopted by the DMV a year ago to keep drivers with a history of alcohol- or drug-related driving convictions off the road.

The regulations prompted dozens of lawsuits from drivers who fell under the new rules after previously pleading guilty to driving while intoxicated or driving while ability impaired and losing their licenses. When they sought a new driver’s license, after serving a prescribed waiting period and taking alcohol- or drug-related classes, they were turned down by the state as repeat offenders.

Administrative appeals at the DMV were unsuccessful, so they sued in state Supreme Court.

On Friday, Justice George B. Ceresia Jr. heard arguments on six cases that were identified as representing the “core legal issues” of 25 lawsuits brought against the DMV by Albany attorney Eric H. Sills of the law firm Gerstenzang, O’Hern, Hickey, Sills & Gerstenzang.

Sills said he represents 150 people whose lives were being ruined by the regulations, which he contends are an unconstitutional grab of power by the executive branch.

His lawsuits allege that Gov. Andrew Cuomo directed the DMV to write the regulations after the Legislature failed to enact tough new laws for repeat offenders.

The new regulations characterize anyone with five or more alcohol/ drugged driving convictions in their lifetime as a “persistently dangerous driver” who never will be licensed again in New York. Permanent license denial also is mandated for drivers who have, in the last 25 years, accumulated three or four alcohol/drugged driving convictions and at least one “serious driving offense,” such as a fatal accident.

Sills argued the 25-year lookback was particularly harsh. “People change; people grow up,” he said, but the regulations reason that “if you were bad then, you’re a problem now.”

Assistant Attorney General Charles J. Quackenbush, who represented the DMV at the hearing, said the agency views licensing and revocation separately.

Burden on applicant

If your license is revoked, he said, it ceases to exist, and so “re-licensing” is a misnomer. Getting a new license is not automatic; a fresh review of an applicant’s suitability must occur, he said, and the applicant “bears the burden” of proving to the DMV that he is fit for a driver’s license.

Ceresia queried Quackenbush on how an applicant could prove their suitability in the face of a “barrier” that wasn’t there before the 25-year lookback was required. “Where’s the discretion, where’s the fundamental fairness there” if the regulations now dictate permanent revocation, he asked.

Public-safety concerns compelled the DMV to tighten the rules for repeat offenders, and public-safety statistics made it necessary to look farther back in a driver’s record, Quackenbush said. “DMV’s priority has to be the larger public safety,” he said.

He brushed aside the constitutional issues raised in the lawsuits, saying state vehicle and traffic law — rooted in action by the Legislature — gave the DMV commissioner broad discretion on who is fit to be licensed. “A driver’s license is a privilege,” Quackenbush said.

The hearing, which lasted about 80 minutes, took place in the Rensselaer County Courthouse. Ceresia reserved decision on the cases.