Task: songer_direct1

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Your task is to determine the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision, coded as "liberal" or "conservative". Consider liberal to be for government tax claim; for person claiming patent or copyright infringement; for the plaintiff alleging the injury; for economic underdog if one party is clearly an underdog in comparison to the other, neither party is clearly an economic underdog; in cases pitting an individual against a business, the individual is presumed to be the economic underdog unless there is a clear indication in the opinion to the contrary; for debtor or bankrupt; for government or private party raising claim of violation of antitrust laws, or party opposing merger; for the economic underdog in private conflict over securities; for individual claiming a benefit from government; for government in disputes over government contracts and government seizure of property; for government regulation in government regulation of business; for greater protection of the environment or greater consumer protection (even if anti-government); for the injured party in admiralty - personal injury; for economic underdog in admiralty and miscellaneous economic cases. Consider the directionality to be "mixed" if the directionality of the decision was intermediate to the extremes defined above or if the decision was mixed (e.g., the conviction of defendant in a criminal trial was affirmed on one count but reversed on a second count or if the conviction was afirmed but the sentence was reduced). Consider "not ascertained" if the directionality could not be determined or if the outcome could not be classified according to any conventional outcome standards.

ROBB, Associate Justice.
Appeal from a decree in the Supreme Court of the District in a partition proceeding;
The petition filed by the appellee, as plaintiff below, sets forth that she and the defendants are the heirs at law and next of kin of Mary M. Moten, deceased, and as such vested with fee-simple title to the real estate sought to be partitioned, and that since the death of Mary M. Moten the defendants “have used and occupied the said premises without paying any rental therefor to the petitioner herein.” Agreeably to the prayers of the petition, the cause was referred to the auditor of the Supreme Court of the District, who found that since the death of Mrs. Moten the property had been solely used and occupied by the defendants “without the payment of rent therefor.”
The decree of the court was for the sale of the premises and an accounting by the defendants to the plaintiff for use and occupancy. The question for determination here, therefore, is whether one of several tenants in common may compel his eotenants to account to him for use and occupation, in the absence of an agreement, ouster, or subletting by the cotenants.
In Lyon v. Bursey, 42 App. D. C. 519, we ruled that a tenant in common is not liable to his cotenants for use and occupation, unless there has been an actual or constructive ouster of the cotenants. See, also, Meyers v. Loan & Savings Ass’n, 116 A. 453, 139 Md. 607, 615; Zwergel v. Zwergel, 194 N. W. 505, 224 Mich. 31, 36; Carroll v. Carroll, 74 N. E. 913, 188 Mass. 558.
Under the provisions of section 93 of the Code, “any tenant in common who may have received the rents and profits of the'property to his own use may be required to account to his cotenants for their respective shares of said rents and profits,” but this presupposes a subletting and is not applicable to the case here.
Counsel for appellee contends, however, that the decree should be affirmed, because of the failure of appellants to incorporate in the record the testimony before the auditor. There is no merit in this contention. Appellee’s petition specifically alleges that the use and occupation was by appellants, and the finding of the auditor is to that effect. In other words, the averments of the petition and the finding of the auditor are inconsistent with the idea that the premises were sublet by the eotenants, so that the incorporation of the testimony would have shed no light upon the question involved.
It follows that the decree must be reversed, with costs, and the cause remanded for further proceedings.
Reversed and remanded.

Question: What is the ideological directionality of the court of appeals decision?
A. conservative
B. liberal
C. mixed
D. not ascertained
Answer:

Answer: D