In Thompson v. Smith, 155 Va. 367 (1930), the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals held that traveling on public highways is a common right tied to personal liberty, and struck down a Lynchburg ordinance that let the Chief of Police revoke a driving permit based on his own opinion of who was unfit to drive.1vLex United States. Thompson v. Smith, 155 Va. 367 (1930) The decision is narrower than it is often made out to be. It condemned arbitrary, standardless enforcement. It did not abolish driver licensing, and it never suggested that a state loses its power to regulate who drives on its roads.
What the Court Actually Held
W.L. Thompson sued D.C. Smith, the Chief of Police of Lynchburg, to stop him from interfering with Thompson’s use of a private passenger car on city streets. The court framed the underlying interest in strong terms: use of the public highways is a common right that belongs to every citizen as part of the broader liberty to enjoy life, acquire property, and pursue happiness. Streets, the court said, are held in trust for the public, and their primary purpose is general movement for business and personal reasons.1vLex United States. Thompson v. Smith, 155 Va. 367 (1930)
Labeling that interest a “right” rather than a “privilege” carried legal weight in 1930 and still does. A privilege can be withdrawn almost at will. A right requires the government to justify itself and to follow a fair procedure before taking it away. That distinction is the spine of the opinion.
What the court did not say is just as important. It did not hold that the right is unlimited, that Virginia could not require permits to drive, or that reasonable safety rules were suspect. The right recognized in Thompson is the right to use the roads. The manner of that use remained subject to regulation.
Why the Lynchburg Ordinance Failed
The ordinance at issue authorized the Chief of Police to revoke the driving permit of anyone who, “in his opinion,” became unfit to drive on city streets.1vLex United States. Thompson v. Smith, 155 Va. 367 (1930) “Unfit” was not defined. No hearing was required. One official’s personal judgment was enough to end a citizen’s ability to drive.
The court found that unconstitutional. The ordinance set out no policy or legal principles to guide the Chief of Police, effectively handing an administrative officer the kind of open-ended power that belongs to a legislature.1vLex United States. Thompson v. Smith, 155 Va. 367 (1930) Without standards and without a chance for the driver to be heard, the revocation was arbitrary. That is the constitutional flaw the case identifies. Not licensing. Not permits. Unchecked discretion.
What the Case Did Not Change
Fifteen years before Thompson, the U.S. Supreme Court had already confirmed that states may regulate motor vehicle use on public highways. In Hendrick v. Maryland, the Court held that automobiles pose “constant and serious dangers to the public” and are a proper subject of state regulation, including vehicle registration, driver licensing, and reasonable fees for both. The Court described this as a straightforward exercise of the police power “essential to the preservation of the health, safety, and comfort of their citizens.”2Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Hendrick v. Maryland, 235 U.S. 610 (1915)
The Virginia court in Thompson did nothing to disturb that authority. Recognizing a right to travel on public roads and allowing the state to set safety conditions on how you travel are not in tension. Speed limits, traffic signals, vehicle inspections, and licensing requirements exist because an unregulated road would be dangerous for everyone using it. Thompson is a check on how the state administers those rules, not on whether it may adopt them at all.
How the Case Is Misread
Thompson v. Smith appears frequently in sovereign citizen filings and roadside arguments, usually cited for the proposition that driving is a constitutional right no state can condition on a license. That reading inverts the opinion. The Virginia court did not strike down Virginia’s authority to issue driving permits. It struck down one ordinance that gave a single official unchecked power to revoke them. The court’s objection was to arbitrary enforcement, not to the existence of a regulatory system.
Courts have rejected the sovereign citizen version of the argument consistently. Hendrick upheld the state’s power to require both licensing and registration.2Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Hendrick v. Maryland, 235 U.S. 610 (1915) Later, in Dixon v. Love, the U.S. Supreme Court described a driver’s license as a “granted license” rather than a fundamental right, and noted it may not be “so vital and essential” as benefits on which someone depends for basic survival.3Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Dixon v. Love, 431 U.S. 105 (1977) Petitioners who invoke a “right to travel” to argue they need no license generally lose.
Right to Travel Is Not a Right to Drive Unlicensed
The confusion tends to come from stacking two different ideas on top of each other. The federal right to travel, discussed most fully in Saenz v. Roe, protects the ability to enter and leave states, to be treated as a welcome visitor while temporarily in another state, and to be treated equally as a new resident.4Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Saenz v. Roe, 526 U.S. 489 (1999) None of that translates into a right to operate a motor vehicle without meeting the state’s licensing rules. Crossing state lines and getting behind the wheel are separate legal questions.
Thompson v. Smith sits inside that same distinction. It protects you against a government official arbitrarily yanking your ability to drive. It does not protect you against a licensing system that applies the same written rules to everyone.
The Lasting Rule from Thompson
Read carefully, the case leaves two propositions on the table, and both are still good law in the sense the Virginia court meant them. First, the use of public highways is a common right, which means the state cannot condition or revoke it through pure administrative whim. Second, the state can regulate that use through standards written down in advance and applied through a fair process. A licensing scheme with published requirements, standardized testing, and a defined revocation procedure is exactly the kind of regulation Thompson permits. An ordinance that lets one officer decide, on his own opinion, who gets to drive is the kind it does not.