Legal Question in Traffic Law in Pennsylvania

Re: how can i get my license back

You are in a tough position. HOW can you just now be finding out about a judgement and suspension from 13 years ago? When did you become aware of this?

Assuming you only found out about this recently, I will suggest the followig:

I would start out with sending one letter to both the court where the judgement was entered and PA-DMV. Explain as best you can the timeframe and what happened (were there any witnesses?). State you want the judgement vacated and a hearing on the merits, and demand a hearing from DMV.

I expect the court will tell you to forget it, as they no longer have any of the records. Any witnesses may be gone or dead.

With DMV, I would argue that any civil judgement must be 'revived' every 5 years, so even if the judgement was docketed, it would be invalid today unless it was revived twice, which I strongly doubt. Better yet, get a judgement search done on yourself to present to DMV to show no judgement. This associated with a quasi-criminal matter (a traffic offense), so they may say it is restitution and does not need to be docketed with the county as a civil judgement must. But you should make the arguement. So, if your license was suspended for leaving the scene, it should only have been suspended for a period of time, like 1 year, and should have been reinstated by now anyway. You (we assume) have no judgement to pay, so that is not an excuse to deny you a new PA liscense. If you can, I would argue that you, your mother, husband, friend, son, daughter, neighbor, whomever, need transportation some times, and they need to rely upon you to drive them occasionally because of a handicap or illness. Maybe you have an illness and need to be able to drive yourself, depending on what your problems may be, where you live, etc.

If you have the money, I'd just suggest you retain an attorney.

Good luck to you (you will need it dealing with state agencies).

Kevin J. Begley