Opinion ID: 303371
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Provisions Other Than Title 23

Text: 30 At the hearing below, the District Court barred plaintiffs from presenting evidence on a number of allegations in their complaint because those allegations related to statutory provisions which the District Court found inapplicable to the Three Sisters Bridge project. Thus, the Court concluded that the project was exempted by Congress from compliance with certain provisions of the federal Code, as well as provisions of the District of Columbia Code. 62 31 In 1968 we held in D.C. Federation of Civic Associations, Inc. v. Airis 63 that this project must comply with pertinent requirements of the D.C.Code. Later that year, Congress directed, in Section 23 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act, that 32 [n]otwithstanding any other provision of law or any court decision or administrative action to the contrary . . . construction [of the Three Sisters Bridge] shall be undertaken as soon as possible . . . and shall be carried out in accordance with all applicable provisions of Title 23 of the United States Code. 64 33 The District Court then held explicitly that the Three Sisters Bridge had been exempted from all of the pre-construction provisions of title 23, and implicitly that the bridge had been exempted from the comparable provisions of the D.C. Code. 65 On appeal from that decision, we held that the bridge must comply with all applicable provisions of title 23. Our opinion did not indicate flatly, however, that the project must also comply with non-title 23 provisions. In view of the District Court's conclusion that compliance with nontitle 23 provisions is not required, we must now resolve the ambiguity arguably left by our earlier opinion. 34 The applicability of these provisions was not squarely faced in the parties' briefs, 66 nor was it discussed at oral argument. While our earlier opinion did make one specific reference to the issue, the parties now draw opposite conclusions from that reference. Discussing section 23's directive that the bridge be built notwithstanding any    court decision    to the contrary, we pointed out that 35 [p]resumably the court decision language refers to our decision in Airis [holding D.C.Code provisions applicable to the Three Sisters Bridge], but the reference is mistaken since that decision was not to the contrary. 67 36 Under these circumstances, we are reluctant to resolve the dispute without providing the parties an opportunity to discuss the question on the merits. Accordingly, we defer judgment on this issue to permit the parties to file, within twenty days from the date of this opinion, memoranda dealing with the question.