Better Living Through Litigation

[Lloyd Danforth]

http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090818/FRONTPAGE/908180301


Attorney hits DMV with suit
Lawyer wants out-of-state infractions dealt with early

By ANNMARIE TIMMINS
Monitor staff
August 18, 2009 - 12:00 am

A Concord attorney is suing the state Division of Motor Vehicles in hopes that a federal court will require the department to start notifying New Hampshire drivers that their licenses are under suspension for infractions in other states before it's too late.

Lawyer William O'Brien filed the lawsuit yesterday on behalf of two clients, but he hopes the U.S. District Court will certify his case as a class-action lawsuit. In court papers filed yesterday, O'Brien alleged two clients weren't told until they tried to renew their driver's licenses that they couldn't because they had been flagged by other states.

That left Robert Hull, Grafton's health officer, without driving privileges for the five months it took him and a lawyer to prove that he'd been wrongly accused of a property violation in New Jersey, according to the lawsuit.

Former state representative Stephen Hellwig couldn't drive for six months because it took that long to resolve an old equipment violation in Massachusetts, O'Brien said. O'Brien argues that had Hull and Hellwig been notified earlier of the out-of-state problems, they could have resolved them immediately without a lengthy loss of driving rights.

Hull, who is also a volunteer firefighter, had to rely on friends or hired drivers so he could care for his elderly mother and respond to fires during the months he had no driver's license, O'Brien said. Hull and Hellwig are seeking attorneys' fees and legal costs but no additional compensation.

What they want is a policy change.

"I would like to see (the state) operate in a user-friendly manner," O'Brien said yesterday. "Most of us want to obey the traffic laws in this state and every other state. If there is (an infraction) posted on (a national database), we'd like to be able to take care of it. And not when we are pulled over or when we try to renew our license."

Neither motor vehicles officials nor staff from the state Department of Safety, which is also named in the lawsuit, has filed a response to the lawsuit. Staff from those offices said yesterday that they could not comment because they had not yet received a copy of O'Brien's filing.

O'Brien already knew Hull because he's represented him on other civil matters. He knew Hellwig from the State House; Hellwig used to be a state representative, and O'Brien now serves as Mont Vernon's representative. Both mentioned the glitch in which they had found themselves, and O'Brien brought the case forward.

O'Brien said he tried to get records from the motor vehicles officials that would quantify how many people have had similar experiences. State officials denied the request on privacy grounds, he said. But he believes there are enough cases out there to justify a class-action lawsuit.

"I think it happens more than it should and quite a lot," O'Brien said.

In Hull's case, he tried to renew his driver's license in July 2008, two weeks before it was to expire. When he did so, staff at the motor vehicles office in Concord told him that New Jersey had issued an order not to renew his license but said they "had no idea" why, the lawsuit says.

Hull was told to "take care of it with New Jersey," according to the lawsuit.

Hull had once lived in New Jersey but moved to New Hampshire years earlier and gave up his New Jersey license in exchange for a New Hampshire one.

New Jersey, meanwhile, had suspended Hull's old, expired New Jersey license in 2007 and 2008 because it believed he had not obtained a certificate of occupancy for property he once owned in that state.

O'Brien summed it up in his filing: "A (state) in which Hull did not live suspended a New Jersey drivers license that he did not have for a violation relating to a building that he did not own."

Getting to that conclusion - and convincing state motor vehicles officials of it - took Hull five months. That was a long time, O'Brien said, in Grafton, where there is no public transportation.

"Hull was required to put together a patchwork of charitable and paid drivers and deliverers in order to maintain various aspects and support of his life," the lawsuit says, "and to carry on his vocation and civic responsibilities, including as an appointed town official."

Hellwig learned his license had been suspended in September 2008, when a Nashua police officer issued him a summons for driving with an expired driver's license. Hellwig's license had expired the month before, and he had not yet been to the state Division of Motor Vehicles to renew it.

When he tried to renew it, however, he was told he couldn't because Massachusetts officials had flagged his license for a problem there. Hellwig spent six months sorting the matter out with Massachusetts and New Hampshire officials, the lawsuit said.

The underlying infraction was a past equipment violation, O'Brien said.

Like Hull, Hellwig had to cobble together rides for six months in order to carry on his life, O'Brien said. A severe punishment, he says, for a minor matter in Hellwig's case and a mistake in Hull's.

The answer, O'Brien said, is simple: requiring the state to notify residents of these problems at the time, not months or years later when it's too late.