Curtin

The state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (Department) appeals from a judgment of the superior court granting, in part, the “administrative mandamus” petition (Code Civ. Proc., § 1094.5) of Robert Emmett Curtin, whose automobile driver’s license had been suspended by the Department under the provisions of Vehicle Code section 13353.

Vehicle Code section 13353 provides that the Department shall suspend for six months, the driver’s license of any person “lawfully arrested for any offense allegedly committed while ... driving a motor vehicle under the influence of intoxicating liquor,” who, under stated circumstances, refuses to submit to a “blood, breath, or urine” test of his body’s alcohol content.

Curtin was such a person, and the Department had suspended his driver’s license for the statutory six-month period (hereafter the instant suspension). He sought to have the instant suspension set aside by the above-noted Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5 petition. While those proceedings were pending he received a communication from the Department concerning a wholly unrelated previous license suspension, as follows: “The suspension of your driving privilege is ended. The…