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ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLANTS Kenneth J. Falk Gavin M. Rose Indianapolis, Indiana

ATTORNEYS FOR APPELLEE Gregory F. Zoeller Attorney General of Indiana Frances H. Barrow David L. Steiner Deputy Attorneys General Indianapolis, Indiana

FILED
Sep 10 2010, 1:23 pm
of the supreme court, court of appeals and tax court

In the

Indiana Supreme Court
No. 49S02-0910-CV-505 LYN LEONE, OMARI VADEN,

CLERK

Appellants (Plaintiffs below), v. COMMISSIONER, INDIANA BUREAU OF MOTOR VEHICLES, Appellee (Defendant below).

Appeal from the Marion Superior Court, No. 49D02-0802PL-6305 The Honorable Kenneth H. Johnson, Judge On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 49A02-0804-CV-377

September 10, 2010

Shepard, Chief Justice. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles notified almost 200,000 people that their driver's licenses and identification cards did not match their Social Security records. Within six months, more

than three-quarters of these people had somehow corrected the discrepancies.

Appellants

represent the subset of those remaining whose names did not match, about 15,000 people. They assert that the Bureau has overstepped its statutory authority by redefining the meaning of "legal name" to exclude anything but the name on file with the Social Security Administration. They sought a preliminary injunction, which the trial court denied. The trial court's conclusion that the class has not shown a likelihood of success was not an abuse of discretion, so we affirm.

Facts and Procedural History

As the trial court found, in 2005 the Bureau of Motor Vehicles began using commercial databases to verify certain information received from individuals who applied for driver's licenses. That same year, the Bureau entered an agreement with the Social Security

Administration for direct access to its records. The comparison procedure, used by at least fortysix other states and the District of Columbia, contains certain tolerances for minor inconsistencies such as transposed letters, extraneous letters, missing letters, and compound surnames. It also does not note an inconsistency where only an initial is provided for a first or middle name and the two surnames match exactly.

From May to October 2007, the Bureau compared its existing records with those of Social Security for verification. After receiving results from these comparisons, it sent letters to some 199,562 individuals with discrepancies in the person's name, gender, Social Security number, or birth date. The Bureau sent one of five letters depending on the nature of the inconsistency. The version sent to class members stated, we received a message indicating your name in our records does not match what is on file with the SSA. This could have occurred because of a typographical error, the use of a nickname in one system and a birth name in the other, name change due to marriage, or other reasons.

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(App. at 36.) All five versions of this first letter stated that "[f]ailure to update this information could result in the invalidation of your license or identification card." (App. at 36

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