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DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF APPEALS

No. 14-CV-1017

ALFRED L. STONE, APPELLANT,

v.

LANDIS CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, INC., et al., APPELLEES.

Appeal from the Superior Court

of the District of Columbia

(CAB-1459-14)

(Hon. Robert Okun, Trial Judge)

(Argued June 23, 2015 Decided July 23, 2015) 

Alfred L. Stone, pro se.

Lily A. Graves, with whom Albert Wilson, Jr., was on the brief, for appellee 

Daniel Cavell. 

Joel P. Bennett filed a brief for appellees Landis Construction, Ethan Landis, 

and Nannette Frost.

Before BLACKBURNE-RIGSBY and EASTERLY, Associate Judges, and 

STEADMAN, Senior Judge.

STEADMAN, Senior Judge: Responding to an advertisement seeking to hire a 

master plumber, appellant Alfred L. Stone interviewed for a position with Landis 
2

Construction Company, Inc. (“Landis”), and was turned down. During the course 

of subsequent litigation, in which Stone unsuccessfully pursued race and age 

discrimination claims,

1

Stone learned that Landis had subsequently hired an 

unlicensed white plumber and had allegedly provided plumbing services for a 

number of years without proper licensing. He then filed suit against Landis, (as 

well as its CEO and two employees), alleging violations of the District of 

Columbia Consumer Protection Procedures Act (“CPPA”), D.C. Code §§ 28-3901

to -3913 (2012 & 2015 Supp.).2Proceeding pro se both below and on appeal, he 

now appeals the trial court’s dismissal of his case for lack of standing under the 

CPPA.3 Although we find that Stone has standing, we conclude that he has failed 

to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and thus affirm.

 

1

See Stone v. Landis Const. Corp., 733 F. Supp. 2d 148 (D.D.C. 2010) 

(discussing failed EEOC claims) rev’d and remanded, 442 Fed. Appx. 568 (D.C. 

Cir. 2011) (allowing race discrimination dismissals to stand, and reversing for a 

federal jury trial on age discrimination claims); Stone v. Landis Const. Corp., 598 

Fed. Appx. 785 (D.C. Cir. 2015) (affirming a jury verdict finding that age 

discrimination had not been established).

2

 Stone also included four common-law counts in his complaint, but does 

not challenge on appeal the trial court’s dismissal of those counts insofar as they 

were distinct from the CPPA claim. 

3

 Appellees challenge the timeliness of Stone’s appeal on the ground that 

Stone’s motion under Super. Ct. Civ. R. 59 (e) was not timely filed and thus did 

not extend the time to appeal under D.C. App. R. 4 (a)(4)(A). Stone did in fact 

(continued...)
3

“Standing is a threshold jurisdictional question which must be addressed 

prior to and independent of the merits of a party’s claims.” Grayson v. AT&T 

Corp., 15 A.3d 219, 229 (D.C. 2011). “[A] lawsuit under the CPPA does not 

relieve a plaintiff of the requirement to show a concrete injury-in-fact to himself.” 

Id. at 244. As we understand Stone’s argument, he asserts injury resulting from his 

job rejection and Landis’s use of unlicensed plumbers, both of which adversely 

affected his employment situation.4 When a plaintiff alleges injury to statutorilyconferred rights, we do not look ahead to the merits of whether the alleged 

statutory right actually exists, but only inquire whether the plaintiff has alleged an 

injury potentially covered by the statute at issue. Id. at 231. Because Stone has 

alleged that his loss of potential employment constitutes an injury-in-fact under the 

 

(...continued)

present the motion to the clerk of the Superior Court for filing within the requisite 

ten-day period but it was “rejected” for failure to attach a proposed order. This 

rejection did not affect the validity of the filing for purposes of extending the time 

for appeal. See Montgomery v. Doctor, Doctor & Salus, P.C., 578 A.2d 176 (D.C. 

1990) (notice of appeal timely filed although rejected by Superior Court clerk for 

failure to pay filing fee and to include eight copies of the notice of appeal).

4

 Stone also purports to represent the interests of Landis’s plumbing 

customers, but he makes no allegation that he sought any plumbing services from 

Landis, and he thus has no standing on this ground to sue in a personal or 

representative capacity. Grayson, 15 A.3d at 247.
4

CPPA, we conclude, pursuant to Grayson, that Stone has standing to assert his 

claim.

5

 

However, “dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) is appropriate where the complaint 

fails to allege the elements of a legally viable claim.” Chamberlain v. Am. Honda 

Fin. Corp., 931 A.2d 1018, 1023 (D.C. 2007). Although Stone has standing to 

assert his interpretation of the CPPA, the existence of the statutory rights he seeks 

to vindicate is a distinct question. Grayson, supra, 15 A.3d at 1252. We thus 

consider whether the legislature intended by its statutory language to include the 

employment relationship within the protection of the CPPA.6

 

5

In Grayson, we discussed the fact that some courts have allowed for 

“overlap between the standing and merits inquiries,” and have seemed to apply the 

principle that “if the plaintiff’s claim has no foundation in law, he has no legally 

protected interest and thus no standing to sue.” Grayson, 15 A.3d at 230-31 

(citations omitted). However, we concluded that firmly distinguishing between the 

standing and merits inquiries was “the better view,” and thus held that Grayson’s 

allegation of injury under the CPPA conferred standing upon him, despite his 

failure to show a violation of the CPPA on the merits. Id. at 231, 249-51. 

6

In the absence of “procedural unfairness, we may affirm a judgment on any 

valid ground, even if that ground was not relied upon by the trial judge.” 

Pietrangelo v. Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr, LLP, 68 A.3d 697, 711 n.10 

(D.C. 2013) (quotation marks and citation omitted). The requirement of 

procedural fairness is satisfied here, since the parties have fully briefed and argued 

this substantive question.
5

“[T]he CPPA was designed to police trade practices arising only out of 

consumer-merchant relationships, and does not apply to commercial dealings 

outside the consumer sphere.” Ford v. ChartOne, Inc., 908 A.2d 72, 81 (D.C. 

2006) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). When used as a noun,

“consumer” means “a person who, other than for purposes of resale, does or would 

purchase, lease (as lessee), or receive consumer goods or services . . . or does or 

would otherwise provide the economic demand for a trade practice.” D.C. 

Code § 28-3901 (a)(2)(A) (2015 Supp.).

7

 A “trade practice,” in turn, is “any 

act . . . [involving] . . . a sale, lease or transfer, of consumer goods or services.” 

D.C. Code § 28-3901 (a)(6) (2015 Supp.). When used as an adjective, “consumer” 

describes anything that (as relevant here) “[a] person does or would purchase, lease 

(as lessee), or receive and normally use for personal, household, or family 

purposes.” D.C. Code § 28-3901 (a)(2)(B)(i) (2015 Supp.). Finally, “‘goods and 

services’ means any and all parts of the economic output of society, . . . and 

includes consumer credit, franchises, business opportunities, real estate 

 

7

 In 2013, legislation became effective which made a number of 

amendments to the CPPA, including to the version of D.C. Code § 28-3905 (k) on 

standing that we interpreted in our 2011 Grayson decision. None of these 

amendments, however, affect the analysis in this opinion. Therefore, all citations 

in this opinion to the CPPA are to the amended version.
6

transactions, and consumer services of all types.” D.C. Code § 28-3901 (a)(7)

(2015 Supp.).

Thus, Stone’s “consumer” status at bottom turns on whether he provided 

“economic demand” for “consumer goods and services.” To so hold would 

involve the contortion of normal language. Stone wanted to provide plumbing 

services through his employment – not receive them. Nobody uses the term 

‘consumer employment.’ Employment, properly understood, is not used “for 

personal, household, or family purposes.” Employment creates the economic 

outputs that consumers demand, rewarding employees with payment for their 

labor. Employees then enter the marketplace as consumers, and spend the money 

they earned on goods and services that they put to “personal, household or family” 

use. See Manning v. Zuckerman, 444 N.E.2d 1262, 1265 (Mass. 1983) (“An 

employee and an employer are not engaged in trade or commerce with each 

other.”); Donovan v. Digital Equip. Corp., 883 F. Supp. 775, 787 (D.N.H. 1994)

(“plaintiff's lengthy relationship with the defendant did not involve the genre of 

marketplace or consumer transactions actionable even under an expansive reading 

of the [New Hampshire Consumer Protection] Act. Rather, this was, in form and 

essence, an employment relationship.”).
7

Nor indeed does employment naturally fall even within the definition of 

“goods and services.” Employment produces goods and services. It is not “the 

economic output of society,” but rather one of the relationships within that society, 

whereby economic output is produced. See Buie v. Daniel Int’l Corp., 289 S.E.2d 

118, 119-20 (N.C. Ct. App. 1982) (“Unlike buyer-seller relationships, we find that 

employer-employee relationships do not fall within the intended scope of [North 

Carolina’s Unfair Trade Practices Act], in spite of plaintiff’s strained 

characterization of the latter as ‘sale of employment skills.’”) Stone points to the 

fact that the definition of “goods and services” includes “business opportunities.” 

D.C. Code § 28-3901 (a)(7) (2015 Supp.). That phrase, however, illustrated by its 

coupling with “franchises,” is generally used as a term of art referring to the sale of 

goods and services that enable the purchaser to start a business, along with an 

expectation that the seller will have some type of ongoing business relationship 

with the purchaser. See 16 C.F.R. § 437.1 (c) (2015); Md. Code Ann., Bus. 

Reg. § 14-101 (West 1996); V.A. Code Ann. § 59.1-263 (A) (West 1985). 

Employment is simply not a “business opportunity” in this sense.8

 

8

 At oral argument, Stone for the first time raised the argument that in order 

for him to legally fulfill the obligations of a master plumber, D.C. plumbing 

regulations would require Landis Construction to offer him a 20% interest in the 

company. However, we normally do not consider arguments raised for the first 

(continued...)
8

Stone also attempts to bolster his status as a consumer by citing Ford v. 

ChartOne, Inc.’s holding that a patient was involved in a consumer transaction 

when he purchased his own medical records for purposes of personal injury 

litigation. Ford, supra, 908 A.2d at 82-84. But Ford is readily distinguishable on 

its facts: medical records are “goods,” while employment is not. We held that 

Ford’s purchase of his medical records was a consumer transaction 

“[n]otwithstanding his pecuniary motivation” because Ford was not a merchant 

engaged in the business of buying and selling medical records, but rather an 

individual pursuing personal injury litigation, and that the medical records were 

being “use[d] for personal . . . purposes.” D.C. Code § 28-3901 (a)(2)(B) (2015 

Supp.). Thus, Ford only stands to reinforce the principle that the CPPA protects 

consumers; it does not speak to the question of whether employment is a good or a 

service. 

 

(...continued)

time on appeal. Long v. United States, 83 A.3d 369, 381 n.17 (D.C. 2013), as 

amended (Jan. 23, 2014). In any event, even if this did make appellees’ job offer a 

“business opportunity,” that “business opportunity” would not be a consumer

“business opportunity,” since Stone would not be using it for “personal, household, 

or family purposes.” D.C. Code § 28-3901 (a)(2)(B) (2015 Supp.). While it might 

seem odd to include such a phrase within a consumer statute, it does make for 

completeness in the definition of societal economic output, and it may not be 

inconceivable that a “business opportunity” could be sought in a consumer context.
9

It is not surprising that virtually without exception, courts in other 

jurisdictions have rejected arguments that their consumer protection statutes 

encompass employment.9See Consumer Protection and the Law § 4:14 (“Courts 

in Georgia, Massachusetts, Nebraska, North Carolina, and South Carolina have []

held that disputes arising out of the employer/employee relationship were not 

intended to be included with the scope of their respective [consumer protection] 

statutes”) (citing cases). 

“Employment is not a consumer item.” Larson v. Tandy Corp., 371 S.E.2d 

663, 666 (Ga. Ct. App. 1988). In addressing the recent amendments to the CPPA, 

the Committee Report was specific as part of its explanation of the revised 

definition of “consumer” in stating that “[i]t is the intention of the Committee that 

private actions under the CPPA remain confined to those brought by consumers as 

that term is generally understood and as refined and expanded here by these 

amendments.”10 COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC 

 

9

 Although those cases have not dealt with the precise “business 

opportunities” language that exists in the CPPA, consumer protection laws tend to 

share common principles across the country.

10

 The word “expanded” referred to amendments designed to explicitly 

permit non-profit and public interest organizations and those who purchased goods 

(continued...)
10

SERVICES AND CONSUMER AFFAIRS, Report on Bill 19-0581, the “Consumer 

Protection Amendment Act of 2012,” at 3, November 28, 2012. The Council has 

demonstrated by its numerous laws governing the employment relationship that it 

knows how to encompass that relationship within a statute. It clearly has not done 

so here.

Although Stone’s allegation of a statutory injury is sufficient for standing 

purposes, he fails to state a legally viable claim. The order of the trial court 

dismissing Stone’s complaint is therefore

Affirmed.11

 

(...continued)

for test and evaluation to bring suit under the CPPA. D.C. Code §§ 28-3901

(a)(2)(B)(ii), -3905(k)(1)(B)-(D) (2015 Supp.).

11

 Also pending before us is a motion by Stone to strike certain portions of 

Landis’s brief. We do not consider or take into account the matters contained in 

those portions of the brief, other than the litigation described in footnote 1, and 

therefore deny the motion as moot.