597 A.2d 848 | Conn. Super. Ct. | 1991
This is an appeal from the decision of the commissioner of motor vehicles (commissioner) suspending the plaintiff's motor vehicle operator's license for a period of ninety days in accordance with General Statutes
General Statutes
The plaintiff sought an administrative hearing to contest the suspension. Section
Most of the underlying circumstances of her arrest are disputed, except that the incident arose from the plaintiff's involvement in a motor vehicle accident on March 18, 1990, on East Main Street in Branford. At that time, the investigating police officer arrested her for driving while intoxicated. The state offered no live testimony at the administrative hearing. The hearing officer, however, entered into evidence, over the objections of the plaintiff, the following completed forms pertaining to the incident: (1) Officer's DWI Arrest and Alcohol Test Refusal or Failure Report (A-44 report), (2) Branford Police Department-Case/Incident Report (C/I report), and (3) Police Accident Report (police report). None of these forms were qualified under any of the established exceptions to the hearsay rule. The commissioner's hearing officer found all four issues in the positive, including the requirement that the police officer had probable cause to arrest the plaintiff for driving while under the influence. *4
When the matter initially came before the court, the decision of the commissioner to suspend the license was based merely upon conclusional findings of the hearing officer including that "[t]he police officer had probable cause to arrest the . . . [plaintiff] for a violation specified in the statute." The commissioner did not specify any facts upon which this conclusion was based.
The Supreme Court has pointed out the necessity for requiring a finding of fact in order to support the conclusion of a hearing officer. "On appeal, the court must determine whether the appropriate procedure under the statute and the state and federal constitutions was employed . . . and whether the evidence relied upon was reliable and substantial and, if believed, sufficient to establish cause under the statute. . . . Effective judicial review of administrative decisions requires that such decisions be based upon substantial evidence and proper reasons. . . . A court reviewing an administrative determination cannot engage in surmise and conjecture to determine whether the decision was lawfully reached. . . . Thus, under the Model State Administrative Procedure Act, an agency is required to prepare `findings of fact and conclusions of law, separately stated.' 13 Uniform Laws Annot., State Administrative Procedure 12 (1980). A similar requirement appears in the Federal Administrative Procedure Act;
Since it could not effectively review the administrative decision to determine whether it was lawfully reached, the court, on November 20, 1990, remanded the case to the administrative hearing officer for the purpose of making a finding of facts. *5
In response to the court's remand, the hearing officer made findings that included the following: "The totality of the officer's observations plus the automobile accident provide sufficient probable cause to have arrested Ms. Zadroga. . . ." The court ordered a second remand to the hearing officer in order to obtain the necessary finding upon which the court could make a meaningful review. On March 14, 1991, the hearing officer submitted the following supplemental finding: "On the issues of Probable Cause, I make the following additional subordinate finding of fact: I relied on State's Exhibit A, consisting of the A-44, Test Record Tapes, Case/Incident Report, Police Accident Report and Breath Test Consent Form, in its entirety, in determining my finding of Probable Cause."
Although proceedings before an administrative agency are informal and are conducted without regard to the strict rules of evidence; Huck v. Inland Wetlands
Watercourses Agency,
The commissioner concedes that in determining probable cause to arrest the plaintiff, the hearing officer should not have taken into consideration postarrest evidence including the results of the intoximeter. He argues, however, that the decision of the hearing officer must be sustained because it meets the substantial evidence rule even if the intoximeter results are excluded. Persico v. Maher,
In Lawrence, the court upheld the decision of the commissioner of motor vehicles even though the record contained unreliable evidence because there was other substantial evidence to support his conclusion, which *7
evidence was admissible. Likewise, in the present case, if the court was to consider the A-44 report together with the C/I report3, without the results of the intoximeter, there would also be sufficient evidence for sustaining the finding of the commissioner. Nevertheless, the similarities between Lawrence and the present case end there. In the present case, the hearing officer made a specific finding that he relied upon the results of the intoximeter to determine probable cause. This is not a case where the agency merely "`incidentally mentions incompetent or irrelevant material'" Lawrence v. Kozlowski, supra, 715 n. 6, quoting Braniff Airways, Inc. v. Civil Aeronautics Board,
The prejudice in the present case is further underscored in two respects. The inadmissible evidence relied upon by the hearing officer was not merely one piece of evidence necessary to determine the only contested issue before him. It went to the heart of the sole contested issued — that is, whether the police officer had probable cause to believe the plaintiff operated her automobile under the influence of alcohol. Reliance on that one inadmissible fact was sufficient to nail down the issue conclusively.
Furthermore, the issue was hotly contested through the testimony of the plaintiff before the hearing officer. The plaintiff testified that the police officer never demonstrated how the field sobriety tests were to be performed, that she was upset, confused and extremely nervous because this was her first accident, that she had no prior involvement with the police, and that she conversed with the arresting officer intelligently and *8 answered all questions responsively. The scales could have at least been tipped in favor of the suspension as a result of the hearing officer considering and making his determination on this very prejudicial evidence.
The plaintiff was also denied due process of law when the hearing officer admitted into evidence the police report and prohibited the plaintiff from introducing evidence on how the accident occurred. These errors must again be reviewed in the context that the hearing officer's conclusion that the police officer had probable cause was based, in part, upon the "totality of the officer's observations plus the automobile accident . . ." and the finding that he "relied on . . . [the] Police Accident Report . . . in its entirety . . . ."
Although the police report could have been generally qualified for admission under the business entry exception to the hearsay rule; Bonner v. Winter,
During the administrative hearing, the hearing officer prohibited the plaintiff from testifying as to the *9
cause of the accident.4 Since the hearing officer relied in part upon the accident and, therefore, the cause, for a determination of probable cause, it was error on his part to prohibit the plaintiff from giving her side of how the accident occurred. It is clear that "at the hearing no one may be deprived of the right to produce relevant evidence . . . ." Balch Pontiac-Buick, Inc. v. Commissioner of Motor Vehicles,
The court is fully aware of the magnitude of the drunken driving problem in this as well as in all the other states. "The offense of driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor is particularly dangerous . . . ." State v. Boucher,
The plaintiff's appeal is sustained.