A riding lawn mower is not an all-terrain vehicle – so a drunk driving charge can’t be treated as with one on an ATV, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The 11-page ruling rejects Keith Shoeder’s appeal for the May, 2017 incident on Oneida County.

He was operating his riding lawn mower on the shoulder of a public roadway. A blood test revealed a BAC of .119. He was convicted of fourth-offense OWI, and sentenced to 120 days in jail.

“We conclude the relevant statutes permit Shoeder’s prosecution for OWI because his riding lawn mower qualifies as a “motor vehicle.” We further conclude Shoeder’s riding lawn mower does not satisfy the statutory definition of an “all-terrain vehicle.” Accordingly, we affirm his OWI conviction,” the court wrote.

Specifically, the statutory definition of the seat on an ATV doomed Shoeder’s appeal.

“Regardless of whether commercial manufacturers have changed their designs and now market all-terrain vehicles with step through seating, we must defer to our legislature’s choice to define an “all-terrain vehicle” as having straddle seating, among other attributes. There is no inherent absurdity or unreasonableness in it having done so. We must give effect to the language of the statute, and if the meaning of that language is plain (as it is here), our inquiry ordinarily ends,” the court ruled. “While Shoeder is correct that his riding lawn mower need not be titled or registered and was designed for cutting grass and not for highway use, he does not dispute that the mower satisfied the statutory definition of a “motor vehicle,” was capable of road travel, and was actually used in this instance to traverse a roadway. And when Shoeder used the riding mower in the capacity he did—i.e., to travel from a tavern on a public roadway—and while he was intoxicated, it seems far from absurd to conclude the legislature would want such a dangerous use prohibited.”

Shoeder’s driver’s license was also suspended for two years, court records show.