69 Pa. Commw. 481

John Gula, Appellant v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Transportation, Appellee.

Submitted on briefs September 16, 1982,

before Judges Blatt, Williams, Jr. and Craig, sitting as a panel of three.

Stephen P. Ellwood, Krasno & Krasno, for appellant.

Harold H. Cramer, Assistant Counsel, with him Ward T. Williams, Chief Counsel, and Jay C. Waldman, General Counsel, for appellee.

October 28, 1982:

Opinion by

Judge Craig,

John Gula appeals an order of the Court of Common Pleas of Schuylkill County, sustaining the Department of Transportation’s fifteen-month suspension of Gula’s automobile inspection privileges for two violations of The Vehicle Code,1 maintaining improper records and certifying an unacceptable vehicle.2

*482Here a state police officer testified that he observed at Gulas station a vehicle which bore a three-day old inspection sticker issued by Gula, although the vehicle had a cracked windshield, four tires lacking the minimum allowable tread depth, a smashed rear-end with a rag in place of a gas tank cap, and a six-to-eight-inch hole rusted through the floorboard. Furthermore, the officer testified, and the common pleas court found, that the hole could not have developed in just three days.

The failure of a mechanic to meet any of the requirements of departmental regulations concerning inspection constitutes a faulty inspection, Department of Transportation, Bureau of Traffic Safety v. Snyder, 37 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 359, 391 A.2d 3 (1978). In our recent decision in Cariola v. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Traffic Safety, 66 Pa. Commonwealth Ct. 360, 444 A.2d 827 (1982), a similar case, we held that a state police officer’s testimony that extensive rust on the vehicle could not have developed within the forty-eight days between the inspection and the discovered violation constituted substantial evidence.3 The evidence here, as to the *483rusting defect, with only three days intervening between sticker issuance and the state police check-up, is thus stronger than it was in Carióla. In addition, as to the recordkeeping violation, the court found that Gula had listed the incorrect registration number of the vehicle in his logs.

Accordingly, we affirm the decision of the common pleas court.

Order

Now, October 28, 1982, the order of August 11, 1980 in the Court of Common Pleas of Schuylkill County, at No. S-336-1980, is affirmed.

Gula v. Commonwealth, Department of Transportation
69 Pa. Commw. 481

Case Details

Name
Gula v. Commonwealth, Department of Transportation
Decision Date
Oct 28, 1982
Citations

69 Pa. Commw. 481

Jurisdiction
Pennsylvania

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