In a decision issued on February 21, 2008, the Pennsylvania Superior Court issued a "suspended owner" decision allowing stops of motor vehicles owned by people with suspended licenses, so long as police can generally match the description of the owner of the vehicle to the person operting the car.

In the decision, Commonwealth v. Hilliar, 218 MDA 2007, a West York Borough police officer ran the license plate of a vehicle. The information returned revealed that the owner of the vehicle had a suspended license. The officer observed that the operator of the vehicle appeared to match the age, sex, and race of the suspended owner, and stopped the vehicle, resulting in a DUI arrest.

The Superior Court determined that the Andersen case did not apply here as the arresting officer in Andersen did not observe the operator and match the observation to a physical description of the  operator prior to making the stop. Here, reasoned the Superior Court, the officer did possess reasonable suspicion to perform an investigative stop because there was no "mere assumption" that the suspended owner was the driver.

The full text of the case is available here.