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373 Pa. 411

Commonwealth v. Starcher

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania

Decided April 22, 1953

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania · decided 1953-04-22

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““By necessary implication, a non-resident under the . . . language of the Code possesses the same right of appeal ... as a resident.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including Fisher License

Relies on Commonwealth v. Emerick

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1953-04-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently June 1971

11 state decisions

60195319601970decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1 Opinion by

Mr. Justice Allen M. Stearne,

¶2 This is an appeal by the Commonwealth from an order of the court of common pleas setting aside an order of the Secretary of Revenue suspending defendant’s reciprocal, nonresident’s operating privileges for operating a motor vehicle.

¶3 The Vehicle Code, §603, 75 PS 163, provides that a non-resident, duly licensed in his home state, may operate in Pennsylvania without obtaining a Pennsyl *413 vania license. And §615(d) of The Vehicle Code, 75 PS 192, provides that the Secretary of Revenue may suspend a non-resident’s privilege to operate a motor vehicle in Pennsylvania for any reason which would justify suspension of a resident’s license.

¶4 It therefore follows that what we said in Commonwealth v. Emerick, 373 Pa. 388, 96 A. 2d 370, relating to suspension of operator’s licenses for operating motor vehicles has similar application. By necessary implication, a non-resident under the above language of the Code possesses the same right of appeal under §616 of The Vehicle Code, 75 PS 193, as a resident.

¶5 Billy Starcher, non-resident defendant, was charged by a state police officer on April 25, 1951, at 8:45 p.m., on a clear, dark night with driving a motor vehicle on a public highway at seventy miles an hour where the lawful speed limit was fifty miles an hour. Defendant does not deny the charge and offers no extenuating circumstances.

¶6 The learned court below revoked the Secretary of Revenue’s order of suspension solely upon the ground of economic hardship. Such an order in the circumstances of this case constituted a manifest abuse of discretion.

¶7 The order is reversed at the cost of appellee.

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