B.C. Appeal Court re-affirms jurisdiction of B.C. Superintendent of Motor Vehicles in driver’s appeal of license suspension

A suspended B.C. driver wishing to revoke his driving prohibition on the basis that he felt the peace officer’s decision to revoke it was wrong and unreasonable should have taken his matter to court and not to the B.C. Superintendent of Motor Vehicles, the B.C. Appeal Court ruled.
In its Oct. 11 decision in Rapton v. British Columbia (Motor Vehicles), the B.C. Appeal Court confirmed the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles could overturn a driving prohibition only on the following two grounds:
•the driver requested the peace officer to administer a breathalyzer test to prove his blood alcohol concentration was less than the legal limit, but the peace officer refused to administer the test.
•the person who received the prohibition was not the driver of the vehicle or did not have care and control of the vehicle at the time.
Duart Rapton appealed to the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles to revoke a notice of driving prohibition issued by a peace officer in August 2009.
In response, the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles issued a form to Rapton that had two boxes to check, one for each of the two grounds listed above.
Rapton checked the box indicating he had requested a breathalyzer test, but the peace officer had refused to administer the test. The Appeal Court decision notes, however, that Rapton entered evidence that he had in fact done a breathalyzer test.
Rapton also challenged the prohibition on the grounds that it was unreasonable, because the peace officer had no grounds to support the notice of prohibition. His argument was based on the fact that a copy of the officer’s notice of the driving prohibition goes to the Insurance Corporation of B.C., and on Page 2 of the report, under the subheading ‘Reasonable and Probable Grounds,’ the officer had left the section blank.
The Appeal Court found the Superintendent of Motor Vehicles had no authority to revoke the prohibition under any circumstances other than those listed in the two boxes on its form. If Rapton wanted to pursue this line of inquiry, the Appeal Court ruled, he needed to seek a judicial review of the peace officer’s prohibition in court.
“I observe that Mr. Rapton is of the view that it is nothing short of outrageous that he could be prohibited from driving on the basis of a prohibition which, on its face, provides no evidentiary basis for the prohibition,” the Appeal Court ruled. “This, of course, ignores the fact that Mr. Rapton provided the evidence [the breathalyzer test] which precluded him from obtaining a remedy under s. 215.3 [the power of the superintendent to revoke a prohibition].”