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Case in Brief: Alaska Supreme Court Upholds Driver's License Revocation Law

On September 4, 1998, the Supreme Court of Alaska upheld the state law permitting the agency to file a driver's license revocation action against a parent who is seriously delinquent in his or her child support obligations. This case is the first of its kind to reach a high-level court. Below is a discussion of the case based on the questions most frequently asked by legislators and legislative staff.

A. Paul Beans, the noncustodial father of a child born in May 1991, was ordered in 1993 to pay $845 per month in child support and assessed retroactive child support of $15,377 by Alaska's Child Support Enforcement Division (CSED). He claimed that he had worked intermittently since 1991 as a commercial fisherman and taxi driver and that his income during that period had been minimal. Beans claimed that he was unable to pay the required child support and acknowledged a $50,000 arrearage on his child support order. In January 1996, CSED notified Beans of its intent to suspend or deny renewal of his driver's license. He responded and asked to work out a payment agreement. CSED mailed him a proposed agreement, to which he did not respond. In March 1997, CSED issued a default decision finding that Beans was not in substantial compliance with the support order. Beans filed an action with the state superior court to challenge the law. The superior court appointed counsel for Beans, and in June 1998, granted Beans' motion for summary judgment based on the pleadings filed by both sides. CSED then appealed the case to the highest court in the state, the supreme court, which reversed the lower court's ruling.

Mr. Beans made three important constitutional challenges to the state law. First, he challenged the law on substantive due process grounds. Essentially, he argued that the government had deprived him of a valuable property interest (his driver's license) without a rational basis and proper process. Second, Beans claimed that the law violated his constitutional right to equal treatment under the law. This claim was based on a loophole in the statute concerning revocation of professional licenses. Under that law, the state could not suspend or revoke a professional license of a delinquent parent if the person was making his "best efforts" to comply with the child support order. The driver's license revocation law has no such explicit "best efforts" clause. Finally, Beans argued that he was entitled to a trial in front a jury before his license was revoked because the potential penalty (license revocation) is so severe it is analogous to a criminal or punitive penalty, for which a jury trial is required under the constitution.

A. The Third District Superior Court for the State of Alaska agreed with Beans on each of his challenges. Beans' due process claim centered on his argument that the statute was arbitrary because failing to pay child support bears no relationship at all to his ability to drive an automobile safely. The lower court acknowledged that "disassociated" sanctions are constitutional in certain circumstances, but it decided that this was not such a circumstance. The court cited the fact that the license revocation statute penalizes parents who are currently supporting their children, if they have failed to do so in the past and accumulated arrearages. The lower court also felt that the statute delegated enforcement decisions to former spouses or partners, in that only obligors whose former spouses or partners sought enforcement from the CSED were affected. The lower court reasoned, therefore, that obligors who had a good relationship with their spouses or partners could avoid sanctions visited upon obligors with less congenial relationships.

In this section, the lower court also dismissed the state's attempt to compare the license revocation sanction with judicial contempt powers. The lower court stressed that contempt powers are equitable in that they consider a wide range of factors before imposing a coercive contempt sanction. The lower court finally stated that the license revocation sanction would be more equitable if it were "applied solely to those obligors who fail to even try to support their children or who actively avoid collection efforts." Based on these considerations, the lower court found that the statute's rigidity and lack of relationship to the sanction imposed violated Beans' due process rights.

The lower court also agreed with Beans' equal protection argument. Under then-current Alaska law, occupational licenses and driver's licenses were treated differently in one crucial respect: a delinquent parent obligor could avoid losing his occupational license if he demonstrates that he is attempting to pay his support by making "the best efforts possible under the circumstances." Beans argued that this variance violated the equal protection clause because one group (those losing their occupational licenses) has a defense that another group (those losing their driver's licenses), and guilty of the same offense (failure to pay child support), doesn't have. The state argued that the defense for the first group is justified because the loss of an occupational license is more severe than the loss of a driver's license, but the court noted that Beans is a taxi driver by occupation, and so the distinction was invalid. The lower court also found that the groups were otherwise the same, and therefore were entitled to the same treatment.

Finally, Beans argued that the penalty was punitive rather than administrative and so he was entitled to a jury trial. The lower court agreed with this analysis, as it found that there exists no remedial relationship between failure to pay child support and the ability to drive an automobile safely and responsibly. It therefore found that the limited judicial review of CSED's actions was inadequate on constitutional grounds and a jury trial must be granted.

A. The Supreme Court of Alaska reversed the lower court on each of these key points. Because Beans was not part of a class that receives special constitutional protection, the court was required to apply the "rational basis" test to the law to determine its constitutionality. Under this test, the law is presumed constitutional and must be proven otherwise by the challenger. If the stated public policy behind the law is rationally related to the outcome of the law's application, then the law is constitutionally adequate.

First, the supreme court found that the statute did not violate Beans' substantive due process rights because it was rationally related to the state's goal. Beans had the burden of proving that the basis for the law was irrational or unreasonable. This is usually a difficult threshold to meet, since the court must accept "any conceivable legitimate public policy" as rational, regardless of whether it agrees with the legislature's policy decision. The court stated that it was immaterial that the potential sanction had little or nothing to do with the underlying conduct because the effectiveness of the sanction made it rational. The supreme court also pointed out that the sanction is not automatic; the state has flexibility to distinguish between obligors who are avoiding payment and those who are unable to pay. Moreover, the statute requires the state to release the obligor's license once that individual enters into and begins to comply with a payment plan. The court also determined that it was not irrational to limit use of the sanction to obligors whose cases were handled by the state, since the state involvement indicates the need for state-assisted enforcement. Finally, the court found that if the sanction were actually applied to someone who was unable to pay their child support award, then it would be unconstitutionally applied, but since Beans didn't make that argument with reference to himself, the court did not discuss that aspect further. Based on these reasons, the supreme court reversed the lower court's ruling that the statute violated Beans' substantive due process rights.

The Alaska Supreme Court also reversed the lower court on its finding that the statute violated Beans' right to equal protection. As explained above, Beans argued that the occupational license revocation section had an exception for individuals making their "best efforts" to comply, but the driver's license revocation section did not. Beans therefore argued that he was at a disadvantage compared to those people subject to revocation of their professional license. The court rejected this argument, stating that applying the driver's license revocation law to someone who was making their best efforts to comply (presumably with a payment plan) would be an unconstitutional application of the law, regardless of the language of the statute. Since Beans had not argued or demonstrated that the driver's license revocation law had been applied to him or anyone else in that manner, the court did not address the issue in further depth. It instead simply held that in practice the constitutional standard must be the same for professional and driver's licenses, despite the difference in statutory language.

The supreme court spent a considerable amount of its opinion examining and rejecting Beans' argument that the driver's license revocation statute unconstitutionally denied him the right to a jury trial. Beans argued that the CSED should not be allowed to decide whether he was making his best efforts to comply with his order, but that a jury should make that determination since his driver's license hinged on that finding. While the court acknowledged that the revocation sanction could be construed as being criminal or civil in nature, it found that a driver's license revocation differed "substantively" from a criminal sanction of conviction and imprisonment. This difference weighed heavily in favor of judicial review rather than a jury trial. The court also noted "the undeniably weighty interests of obligors' children, and those children's custodial parents" when concluding that "Beans' right to have a judge review the CSED's determination that it is not trying to coerce him to pay more than he truly can pay is constitutionally sufficient."

A. The only other published case directly considering a license restriction sanction for delinquent child support obligors is Thompson v. Ellenbecker, 935 F. Supp. 1037 (S.D.S.D., 1995). This 1995 case, which challenged South Dakota's driver's license restriction law, was litigated in federal district court and not appealed further. Federal district court cases are controlling only within that federal district, but are considered by other federal and state courts. They do not, however, usually carry much precedential weight outside the jurisdiction.

In Thompson, the three plaintiffs, all of whom were currently paying child support through income withholding, refused to sign the stipulation agreement necessary to renew their driver's licenses. The state-mandated stipulation stated that they agreed to remain current in their child support payments and to pay an additional amount every month to account for arrearages. When their driver's licenses were subsequently restricted, the plaintiffs brought suit charging that the South Dakota statute violated their substantive and procedural due process rights and their equal protection rights.

The federal district court ruled in favor of the state with regard to each of the challenges. First, the court found that a rational basis existed for the law and specifically noted that without a valid driver's license "it is more difficult to move or change jobs with the specific intent of avoiding payment of child support." As a result, the court decided that the law did not deny the plaintiffs their right to substantive due process. Second, the court examined the plaintiffs' procedural due process challenge. On this point, the plaintiffs were basically arguing that the state could not require them to sign the stipulation as a condition to obtaining a driver's license. The federal district court again rejected the plaintiffs' arguments, pointing out that the stipulation did not require an obligor to make any current support payments which were not already the subject of a court order and did not require the obligor to waive any rights. In a nutshell, the stipulation only served to reiterate obligations that had already been established with the benefit of all required procedural due process. As a result, no procedural due process rights are violated. Finally, the plaintiffs argued that their rights to equal protection were violated because the license restriction sanction was not rationally related to the legitimate state interest of collecting child support. The court disagreed and once again found that the sanction and goal were not so unrelated as to be irrational. On these bases, the federal district court upheld South Dakota's driver's license restriction law.

The plaintiffs in Thompson had originally challenged the professional and business license sections of the statute, but, because they did not possess those types of licenses, the court found that they did not have adequate legal standing to bring such a challenge.

It is possible that other state district courts have decided similar cases. Cases at that level are not widely reported or cited in other cases, and so are difficult to locate when conducting legal research.

A. The only court of appeal for a state supreme court ruling is the U.S. Supreme Court. The Supreme Court accepts cases through a certiorari petition process and relatively few cases are selected for review in any given year. A petitioner may not request certiorari review for the same case more than once, so if it is denied, the last court's ruling stands. The current U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated a reluctance to grant certiorari to cases involving state law unless there is a standing disagreement on the issue among courts from different states or between state and federal courts.

Another issue to remember is the cost of such an appeal. Every appeal is an additional expense for Beans, unless a large advocacy group (such as the American Civil Liberties Union) chooses to finance his appeals. (He clearly did not have such backing during his initial filing, since he didn't even have an attorney until the court appointed one.) Such advocacy groups are very particular regarding which "test cases" they select to pursue through the appeal process. This case may not be especially attractive as a test case because there doesn't seem to be any evidence of Beans' attempts to meet the "best efforts" threshold.

A. In recent years, the U. S. Supreme Court has indicated a reluctance to reverse rulings of state supreme courts in which the court upheld a state law. There are, of course, exceptions, but generally most Supreme Court observers agree on this point. Thus, even if Beans did overcome the certiorari threshold, he would still have to fight the Court's tendency in this area.

If Beans was successful in surmounting the Supreme Court's current trend regarding state supreme court rulings, his challenge would probably not succeed. Like the state supreme court, the U.S. Supreme Court would only review the law using a rational basis test, and under this weak form of scrutiny, it would probably pass muster.

A. The Alaska Supreme Court reversed and remanded the case back down to the superior court. Thus, if Beans does not appeal or if he appeals and loses, the superior court must now hear the case again, this time considering the state supreme court's decision. In such situations, the lower court usually issues a decision closely reiterating the higher court's reasoning and reaching the same conclusions. The ultimate outcome would therefore be that the statute would remain valid and Beans would be required to either comply with the child support order or face the loss of his driver's license.

A. The fact that the state legislature was required to enact a license restriction law based on the federal mandates in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 is not material to a court's analysis in this case. A petitioner must raise a specific challenge to the federal law itself in order to have it reviewed by the court. (In fact, the state supreme court did not even acknowledge the federal mandate in its opinion.) Without that specific challenge, as in Beans' case, the most a court could do is find the state law unconstitutional as written and send the state lawmakers back to the drawing board. The federal mandate would still be valid, and the state legislature would still be required to have a license restriction law on the statute books. Moreover, if the state law were declared unconstitutional, the state legislature would have two choices: one, draft a new license restriction law and try to tailor it to meet the constitutional threshold set by the court, or, two, choose not to comply with the federal mandate and face a federal sanction. For these reasons, an aggressive test case would most likely include a challenge to the federal mandate as well, in an attempt to nullify the whole concept of restricting licenses for child support purposes.

A. This is the first case concerning license restrictions for noncompliant child support obligors to reach a high-level court, but, since this case was litigated in state court and not in federal court, it is not controlling precedent outside Alaska. Even so, any state or federal court looking at this type of case will read these Alaska decisions and probably be influenced by their reasoning.

At this point, it's still difficult to predict whether this case is a bellwether for how other state courts will decide these issues. The main crux of vulnerability, if any, in this law is probably the rationality of the sanction as it relates to the "crime." A court, however, is only required to find a rational basis for the sanction, and rational basis is a very low (and liberally-interpreted) threshold, so most courts respect the presumption toward a finding of rationality. Also, it's the responsibility of the challenger to prove that the legislature wasn't rational in writing the law. In the Beans case, the courts presented a good example of how two courts can read the rational basis threshold differently: the lower court specifically found that the sanction wasn't related to the crime, while the state supreme court found that the effectiveness of the sanction demonstrated the rationality of the sanction. Both are reasonable findings, so case law in this area still should be regarded as unsettled until more states have had an opportunity to review the laws. The Alaska Supreme Court's reliance on the presumption of rationality in the law, however, is indicative of most state court approaches.

The lower court's ruling in the Beans case was interesting because the court seemed to stick to general legal doctrines rather than employing any legal gymnastics to reach its conclusions. This led some observers to speculate that the decision might be upheld. Even so, on review the Alaska Supreme Court unequivocally struck down the lower court's reasoning. In fact, the only point of agreement between the two courts was that the targeted obligor has a right to some form of judicial review prior to final revocation action. As a result, Alaska's decision seems to signal a clear victory for states currently operating license restriction programs, as long as some form of judicial review is available to targeted obligors.

Future rulings may depend considerably on the policy-leanings of the court reviewing the case. The state supreme court took judicial notice of the effectiveness of the statute and the legitimate public policy of providing for dependent children. In reality, since a ruling can probably go either way and still be legally sound, these cases could easily be of the variety where the courts decide the outcome they want and then research and write the opinions to match.

Beans v. State, 1998 Alas. LEXIS 145 or Case No. S-8322, No. 5030 (9/4/98).

Selected References:

Mark R. Fondacaro and Dennis P. Stolle, "Revoking Motor Vehicle and Professional Licenses for Purposes of Child Support Enforcement: Constitutional Challenges and Policy Implications," Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy, Spring 1996. WestLaw online citation: 5 CNLJLPP 355.

Myers, Teresa A. "Child Support Enforcement: State Legislation in Response to the 1996 Federal Welfare Reform Act," State Legislative Report, National Conference of State Legislatures, September 1998.

Myers, Teresa A. "State Child Support Programs: Necessity Inspires Ingenuity," State Legislative Report, National Conference of State Legislatures, December 1998.

Myers, Teresa A. "License Restrictions and Child Support," LegisBrief, National Conference of State Legislatures, January 1999.