Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles, Petitioner v. William Hernandez, Respondent; Florida…

Summary

The court held that DHSMV may suspend a driver's license for refusing a breath test only when the refusal was incident to a lawful arrest. It also held that a DHSMV hearing officer must review whether the test request and refusal were incident to a lawful arrest because the implied-consent and suspension statutes must be read together and otherwise would create an unreasonable and constitutionally infirm scheme. Justice Quince concurred in the result but rejected the majority's statutory-authority rationale, while Chief Justice Canady, joined by Justices Polston and Labarga, would have reached the opposite answers.