Brandon Dean Watson v. Iowa Department of Transportation Motor Vehicle Division

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA
No. 12–0344
Filed April 12, 2013
BRANDON DEAN WATSON,
Appellant,
vs.
IOWA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
MOTOR VEHICLE DIVISION,
Appellee.
On review from the Iowa Court of Appeals.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Donna L.
Paulsen, Judge.
Appellant seeks further review of court of appeals decision
affirming the disqualification of his commercial driver’s license for one
year. DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS AND JUDGMENT OF
DISTRICT COURT AFFIRMED.
Billy J. Mallory of Brick Gentry, P.C., West Des Moines, for
appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Michelle R. Linkvis,
Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
2
HECHT, Justice.
A commercial driver appeals a one-year disqualification of his
commercial driver’s license (CDL). The Iowa Department of
Transportation (IDOT) suspended his license for operation of a
commercial motor vehicle with an alcohol concentration of .04 or more,
in violation of Iowa Code section 321.208(1)(a) (2011). In review
proceedings below, the driver contested the suspension on the ground
that the IDOT had erred in concluding that in the CDL context,
breathalyzer test results are not to be adjusted for the breathalyzer test’s
recognized margin of error. The district court and court of appeals
affirmed the IDOT decision. Finding no ambiguity in the applicable
statutes, we affirm.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
Brandon Watson was driving a commercial motor vehicle in
Monroe County, Iowa on October 22, 2010. An Iowa state trooper
stopped Watson and, after obtaining consent, administered a DataMaster
breathalyzer test. The test result indicated an alcohol concentration of
0.041. Based on the test result, the IDOT determined that Watson had
operated a commercial vehicle with an alcohol concentration of .04 or
more, in violation of Iowa Code section 321.208(1)(a), and issued Watson
a notice of a one-year suspension of his CDL. Watson appealed, arguing
Iowa’s CDL suspension statute requires that the IDOT subtract the
breathalyzer’s recognized margin of error of .004 from test results, and
therefore, the IDOT had insufficient evidence to find he had violated the
statute. 1 On intra-agency review, the IDOT sustained the suspension.
1The parties agree that the recognized margin of error for the DataMaster is
.004, and that, had the margin of error been subtracted from Watson’s test result, the
IDOT would have found an alcohol concentration of .037.
3
Watson sought judicial review of the agency’s decision in Polk
County District Court. The district court affirmed the agency’s
determination in relevant part, holding the agency had correctly
concluded the statutory provisions controlling CDL revocations do not
authorize margin of error adjustments of breath test results. Watson
appealed and we transferred the case to the court of appeals. The court
of appeals affirmed. Watson requested further review, and we granted
the request to determine whether the IDOT erred in failing to adjust
Watson’s test result by the margin of error.
II. Scope of Review.
Iowa Code chapter 17A governs judicial review of agency actions.
Wallace v. Iowa State Bd. of Educ., 770 N.W.2d 344, 347 (Iowa 2009).
The district court reviews for errors at law. Ludtke v. Iowa Dep’t of
Transp., 646 N.W.2d 62, 64 (Iowa 2002). On appeal, we apply the
standards of chapter 17A to determine whether we reach the same
conclusions as the district court. Id. at 65. If we reach the same
conclusions, we affirm; otherwise we may reverse. Lee v. Iowa Dep’t of
Transp., 693 N.W.2d 342, 344 (Iowa 2005). We will uphold the IDOT’s
factual findings if, after reviewing the record as a whole, we determine
substantial evidence supports the findings. Iowa Code § 17A.19(10)(f).
This case involves the IDOT’s interpretation of a statute. Reversal
may be warranted where “substantial rights . . . have been prejudiced
because the agency action is ... [b]ased upon an erroneous
interpretation of a provision of law whose interpretation has not clearly
been vested by a provision of law in the discretion of the agency.” Id.
§ 17A.19(10)(c). Because this is not an area where interpretation of the
law has been clearly vested in the discretion of the agency, we need not
give deference to the IDOT’s interpretation of section 321.208 and may
4
substitute our judgment de novo for the agency’s interpretation. Lee,
693 N.W.2d at 344.
III. Discussion.
Watson contends, as he did below, that under Iowa’s CDL
suspension statute the IDOT is required to subtract a breathalyzer’s
standard margin of error from test results before making an alcohol
concentration determination. Had the IDOT made the required
subtraction, Watson contends, there would have been no evidence to
support a suspension under the statute. The IDOT counters that the
general margin of error provision in Iowa’s operating-while-intoxicated
statute does not apply in the CDL context.
Iowa Code section 321.208, entitled “Commercial driver’s license
disqualification,” provides for CDL disqualification as follows:
1. A person is disqualified from operating a
commercial motor vehicle for one year upon a conviction or
final administrative decision that the person has committed
any of the following acts or offenses in any state or foreign
jurisdiction while operating a commercial motor vehicle:
a. Operating a commercial motor vehicle with an
alcohol concentration, as defined in section 321J.1, of 0.04
or more.
....
12. a. A person is disqualified from operating a
commercial motor vehicle if the person either refuses to
submit to chemical testing required under chapter 321J or
submits to chemical testing and the results show an alcohol
concentration as defined in section 321J.1 of 0.04 or more.
Iowa Code § 321.208. Both provisions refer the IDOT, in determining
alcohol concentration in the CDL suspension context, to section 321J.1,
which defines alcohol concentration as “the number of grams of alcohol
per any of the following:” (a) one hundred milliliters of blood; (b) two
5
hundred ten liters of breath; or (c) sixty-seven milliliters of urine. Id.
§ 321J.1(1). Section 321J.1 does not, however, address margin of error
adjustments of test results. Id. § 321J.1.
The margin of error provision at the center of this controversy is
set forth in Iowa Code section 321J.12(6), entitled “Test result
revocation.” The statute provides:
The results of a chemical test may not be used as the basis
for a revocation of a person’s driver’s license or nonresident
operating privilege if the alcohol or drug concentration
indicated by the chemical test minus the established margin
of error inherent in the device or method used to conduct the
chemical test is not equal to or in excess of the level
prohibited by section 321J.2 or 321J.2A.
Id. § 321J.12(6). This margin of error provision refers expressly to the
prohibitions in sections 321J.2 and 321J.2A, which set maximum
allowable alcohol concentrations for noncommercial drivers ages twenty-
one and up, and noncommercial drivers under the age of twenty-one,
respectively. See id. §§ 321J.2, .2A. Section 321J.12(6) thus requires
that the IDOT, before making a determination of alcohol concentration
for the purpose of suspending a noncommercial license, adjust chemical
test results downward by the test’s standard margin of error.
In interpreting a statute, our goal “is to give effect to the legislative
intent of [the] statute.” State v. Schultz, 604 N.W.2d 60, 62 (Iowa 1999).
In addition to the words chosen by the legislature, we will also consider
“ ‘the objects sought to be accomplished and the evils and mischiefs
sought to be remedied, seeking a result that will advance, rather than
defeat, the statute’s purpose.’ ” Id. (quoting Danker v. Wilimek, 577
N.W.2d 634, 636 (Iowa 1998)). In construing provisions of the relevant
statutes previously, we have searched for the legislature’s intent as
evidenced by what the legislature said, rather than what it might have
6
said. See State v. Guzman-Juarez, 591 N.W.2d 1, 2 (Iowa 1999). We
have observed that legislative intent is expressed by omission as well as
by inclusion and that the express mention of certain sections implies the
exclusion of others. Wiebenga v. Iowa Dep’t of Transp., 530 N.W.2d 732,
735 (Iowa 1995). We have also explained that when the text of a statute
is plain and its meaning clear, the court should not search for a meaning
beyond the express terms of the statute. Guzman-Juarez, 591 N.W.2d at
2.
We have noted the high standards our legislature has set in
prohibiting drunk driving by commercial drivers, and we have observed
that commercial drivers are held to higher standards than
noncommercial drivers. Wiebenga, 530 N.W.2d at 735. We have
explained that the legislature has distinguished commercial from
noncommercial drivers in various provisions of our drunk driving
statutes, in part because commercial drivers are often faced with riskier
and more difficult tasks than noncommercial drivers. Id.
Applying these principles of interpretation and policy here, we
cannot conclude the legislature intended its margin of error provision in
section 321J.12(6) would apply in the CDL suspension context. The
provision, by its express terms, refers only to sections 321J.2 and
321J.2A—sections governing license revocations for noncommercial
licensees. The margin of error provision makes no reference to section
321.208, which governs license revocations for commercial drivers. The
express directive requiring the margin of error adjustment in the
noncommercial licensee context and the absence of any reference to such
adjustment in the CDL context together inform our conclusion that the
legislature never intended margin of error adjustment of CDL operators’
test results. Wiebenga, 530 N.W.2d at 735.
7
Further, in the absence of clear guidance otherwise, we hesitate to
read the margin of error provision’s explicit reference to sections 321J.2
and 321J.2A as not limiting the provision’s application, because such a
reading may render the provision illogical or render sections of the
provision unnecessary surplusage. In other words, if we read section
321J.12(6) as controlling determinations of alcohol concentration in
scenarios other than the noncommercial revocations expressly
mentioned, we are left with no clear guidance as to how to read “level
prohibited by” and the disjunctive “321J.2 or 321J.2A” language of the
provision. According to the provision as unambiguously written, the
IDOT must subtract the recognized margin of error from the test result
before comparing the result to the maximum allowable concentration in
either section 321J.2, if dealing with a noncommercial driver ages
twenty-one and up, or section 321J.2A, if dealing with a noncommercial
driver under age twenty-one. If the provision were also applicable to
commercial suspensions, we think it unlikely the maximum allowable
limits in sections 321J.2 and 321J.2A would apply, given that the
commercial suspension section sets its own maximum allowable limit.
We cannot, however, read the language of section 321J.12(6) referring to
noncommercial revocations out of the provision entirely, and thus we
would confront questions of which concentration limit applies in various
circumstances—questions we do not believe the legislature intended to
raise in drafting this provision.
We also think it significant that our legislature adopted the margin
of error provision in 1986, added the CDL suspension section in 1990,
and, in revisiting the margin of error provision in the years since, has
never made it expressly applicable to CDL suspensions. See, e.g., 1986
Iowa Acts ch. 1220, § 12 (adding original margin of error provision); 1990
8
Iowa Acts ch. 1230, § 51 (adding original CDL suspension provision);
1995 Iowa Acts ch. 48, § 17 (modifying the margin of error provision to
refer to both noncommercial drivers ages twenty-one and up, and
noncommercial drivers under age twenty-one). The legislature has
amended the margin of error provision twice since adopting the CDL
suspension provision at issue here and has amended on at least one
other occasion other paragraphs in section 321J.12 to modify maximum
allowable limits and references to other suspension scenarios. See 1995
Iowa Acts ch. 48, § 17; 1998 Iowa Acts ch. 1138, § 20; 2003 Iowa Acts
ch. 60, §§ 5–6. Moreover, the legislature added express references to
commercial drivers and the maximum allowable commercial limit in other
sections of 321J when it added the CDL suspension provision in 1990.
See Iowa Acts 1990 ch. 1230, § 85 (adding commercial vehicle provision
to section 321J.6); id. § 86 (adding commercial vehicle provision to
section 321J.8). The legislature did not, however, amend then and has
not since amended section 321J.12(6) to incorporate references to the
CDL suspension section, and we cannot conclude the legislature
intended this broader application urged by Watson. 2
Watson advances the additional contention that the CDL
suspension provision’s “alcohol concentration” language is to be
distinguished from “chemical testing,” and that the distinction compels
adjustment of chemical test results by the recognized margin of error
before determining an alcohol concentration. That argument is
unpersuasive for two reasons. First, we have already observed that the
2We observe, as the district court did below, that section 321J.1 defines “driver’s
license,” unless “context otherwise requires,” to include a commercial driver’s license for
the purposes of chapter 321. Iowa Code § 321J.1(7). Because of the plain language of
section 321J.12(6) and the ambiguity this broader definition would introduce, however,
we conclude context requires the margin of error provision be read with the narrower
noncommercial definition.
9
definition section expressly referenced by the CDL suspension provision
defines “alcohol concentration” and makes no mention of margin of error
adjustment. We are hesitant to read an additional limitation into
“alcohol concentration” not contemplated by the provision’s explicit
definition. Second, paragraph twelve of the CDL suspension provision,
reproduced above, suggests that a chemical test result indicates an
alcohol concentration regardless of margin of error adjustment. Iowa
Code § 321.208(12)(a) (chemical test result may “show an alcohol
concentration as defined in section 321J.1.”). We cannot conclude the
legislature intended to incorporate margin of error adjustment in the
CDL suspension context with its choice of specific language in section
321.208.
Having found it logical in the past that the legislature would
distinguish commercial drivers from ordinary drivers in revocation
proceedings, we find no reason to dismiss the principle here. Wiebenga,
530 N.W.2d at 735. We find no indication in the structure or language of
the relevant statutes that the legislature intended that a breathalyzer test
result be adjusted by the recognized margin of error in making an alcohol
concentration determination for the purpose of CDL suspensions.
IV. Conclusion.
We conclude the IDOT properly interpreted Iowa Code section
321.208. As a result, we conclude the IDOT’s finding that Watson’s
alcohol concentration was 0.041 was supported by substantial evidence.
We affirm the agency’s one-year suspension of Watson’s CDL privilege.
DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS AND JUDGMENT OF
DISTRICT COURT AFFIRMED.