Opinion ID: 2447003
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motion for Immediate Possession and Order to Vacate

Text: The trial court determined that title to the Property passed to NCRC on November 18, 2005, and ruled that NCRC (and, later, the District as substituted plaintiff) was entitled to possession as of that date. Ms. Oh contends that NCRC did not fully comply with the statutory procedures for executing a so-called quick-take condemnation, and that as a result, title to the Property did not pass from her to NCRC on November 18, 2005. D.C.Code § 16-1314 prescribes the steps that the District must follow to effectuate a quick-take condemnation (so called because it allows the District to obtain title to private property quickly without waiting for the result of a jury trial [11] ). First, the District must file a complaint for condemnation in trial court. D.C.Code § 16-1314(a) (2001) (referencing the complaint described in D.C.Code § 16-1311); see also Super. Ct. Civ. R. 71A (c) (2001). Second, it must file a declaration of taking, either with the complaint or at any time before judgment, D.C.Code § 16-1314(a). Third, the District must deposit the estimated just compensation into the court's registry. Id. § 16-1314(b) (2001). Upon the filing of the declaration of taking and the deposit in the registry of the court, the title to the property ... shall vest in the District of Columbia, and the property shall be deemed to be condemned and taken for the use of the District, and the right to just compensation therefor shall vest in the persons entitled thereto. Id. Once title has vested in the District, the court may fix the time within which and the terms upon which the parties in possession shall be required to surrender possession of the property to the District. Id. § 16-1316 (2001). Ms. Oh argues that NCRC failed to accomplish a quick-take condemnation that was effective to give it title to the Property as of November 18, 2005, because (1) NCRC failed to file a document that qualified as a declaration of taking; (2) NCRC's deposit of estimated just compensation occurred too late to effectuate a quick-take condemnation; and (3) no transfer of title was recorded on that date. We disagree. [12] D.C.Code § 16-1314(a) describes the mandatory contents of a declaration of taking: (1) a statement of authority under which, and the public use for which, the property is taken; (2) a description of the property; (3) a statement of the interest in the property taken; (4) a plan showing the property taken; and (5) a statement of the sum of money estimated to be just compensation. D.C.Code § 16-1314(a)(1)-(5). The Declaration in Support of Complaint to Condemn Real Property that NCRC filed on July 8, 2005, asserted NCRC's statutory authority for taking the Property (D.C.Code §§ 2-1219.19(a) and 2-1219.19(c)(1)); the public use for which it was taken (to consolidate the Property with the other parcels for retail and related development, to wit, the development plan known as the Skyland Project); a description of the Property by reference to the assessment and tax records and a parcel number; a statement that NCRC sought to acquire the Property in fee simple; a plat showing the Property; and NCRC's estimate that $160,000 would constitute just compensation for the Property. Ms. Oh does not contend on appeal that the foregoing content failed to satisfy the statutory requirements for the content of a declaration of taking, but complains that neither NCRC's July 8, 2005 filing nor anything else that NCRC filed qualified as a declaration of taking because no filing was so captioned, and because nothing in NCRC's filings tracked the statutory language by stating that the property is thereby taken for use of the District of Columbia. D.C.Code § 16-1314(a). She also argues that NCRC's failure to deposit the just-compensation funds into the court registry contemporaneously with its July 8, 2005 filing negated any effort by NCRC to effect a quick-take condemnation. We are not persuaded by these arguments. For the reasons that follow, we conclude instead that the July 8 declaration either (1) was a declaration of taking, which NCRC need not have withdrawn and then re-filed when it made its deposit of estimated just compensation into the court registry; or (2) was not a complete declaration of taking but effectively became one when combined with the November 18, 2005 notice that NCRC filed contemporaneously with making its deposit into the court registry. We begin our analysis by noting that section 16-1314 does not require that a declaration of taking have any particular caption. [13] Nor does the statute require any specific, magic words. [14] And, despite absence of the language that Ms. Oh asserts was required (the property is []hereby taken for use of the District of Columbia), Ms. Oh recognized in her November 1, 2005 answer that NCRC's July 8, 2005 filing purported to declare a taking: one of Ms. Oh's affirmative defenses stated that NCRC's complaint was barred because NCRC filed a Declaration of Taking that did not include a `plan showing the property taken[.]' We think it was obvious that NCRC's intention, gathered from the language of the entire declaration and the circumstances surrounding it, [15] was to take the Property. Indeed, had NCRC not intended to pursue the quick-take procedure, there would have been no reason for it to file anything other than the complaint contemplated by D.C.Code § 16-1311, and it could have dispensed with the accompanying Declaration in Support of Complaint to Condemn Real Property that set out the information prescribed by section 16-1314(a)(1)-(5). And in any event, with the notice that NCRC filed on November 18, 2005, when it paid the estimate of just compensation into the court registrya notice stating that the amount paid into the registry was for the Property delineated in the Declaration of Taking filed in this action on July 8, 2005NCRC effectively remedied any omission in its earlier declaration and unambiguously demonstrated its intent to effect a quick-take condemnation. We now turn to Ms. Oh's argument that NCRC had to file a complete declaration of taking contemporaneously with its deposit of just-compensation funds into the court registry in order to accomplish a quick-take condemnation. D.C.Code § 16-1314(a) states explicitly that the declaration of taking need not be filed contemporaneously with the condemnation complaint (expressly providing that the declaration may be filed with the complaint or at any time before judgment). The statute is also clear that once the complaint and declaration of taking have been filed and the estimated just compensation has been paid into the court registry, title to the condemned property vests in the District. D.C.Code § 16-1314(b). But, unlike the condemnation statute in at least one other jurisdiction, [16] section 16-1314 does not address whether the filing of a declaration of taking and payment of estimated just compensation into the court registry must be contemporaneous. It appears that contemporaneous filing of a declaration of taking and payment into the court registry is the usual practice under the analogous federal condemnation statute, [17] and, in a Rule 28(k) letter, Ms. Oh has cited a Supreme Court case stating, in the course of describing a federal expeditious condemnation statute, that the government was obliged, at the time of the filing [of a declaration of taking], to deposit in the court ... an amount of money equal to the estimated value of the land. Kirby, 467 U.S. at 4-5, 104 S.Ct. 2187 (emphasis added). In interpreting our local statute, however, we are not bound by federal practice or by that case law. As a practical matter (and as the trial court reasoned), as of November 18, 2005, NCRC had the same authority ... to perform a quick-take condemnation under Section 16-1314 as it had on July 8, 2005, such that it could easily and immediately [have] obtain[ed] legal title to the property filing a new declaration on the date (November 18, 2005) it paid its estimate of just compensation into the court registry. That being the case, it would amount to an elevation of form over substance for us to hold that NCRC either had to withdraw its July 8, 2005 declaration and re-file it on the same day it made its deposit into the court registry, [18] or had to include all the content of its July 8, 2005 declaration in the supplemental notice that it filed on November 18, 2005, in order for the November 18 filing and accompanying deposit to result in a quick-take of the Property. [19] More important, as the District points out, Ms. Oh has not identified any way in which she was prejudiced by the four-month interim between the filing of the declaration and the deposit of estimated just compensation or by the two-step process that NCRC employed. For these reasons, we are not persuaded that we should read into section 16-1314(b) a rigid contemporaneity requirement (although we do not mean to foreclose the possibility of circumstances in which a delay between the filing of a declaration of taking and payment of estimated just compensation or a piecemeal approach would be prejudicial to the property owner, such that the government might properly be required to begin anew). We conclude that the trial court did not err in determining that title to the Property transferred to NCRC on November 18, 2005, when NCRC tendered payment of the estimated just compensation amount and filed its accompanying notice that the amount was for the Property delineated in the Declaration of Taking filed in this action on July 8, 2005. We also reject Ms. Oh's argument that the District did not acquire the property because [t]here is no document in the Recorder of Deeds which shows that the District of Columbia has title to the property. D.C.Code § 16-1314(b) provides that title shall vest in the District of Columbia upon the filing and deposit described in the statute, without regard to recordation. Moreover, even where recordation is required to give a grantee of real property good title as against third parties, it is not required for good title against the party from whom the property has been transferred. [20] Ms. Oh further contends that the trial court erred in ordering her to vacate the property by September 1, 2010, asserting that it will be very difficult and expensive for her to relocate, and that she should not have to do so until all of the litigation relating to the Skyland Project ends. While we are sympathetic to Ms. Oh's position, title vested in the District in 2005, and we are also mindful that the court issued an order in 2006 declaring the District's right to immediate possession. The trial court would have been well within its discretion in considering that Ms. Oh has had ample notice and time to make arrangements to vacate the property. Accordingly, we cannot find that the court abused its discretion in ordering her to vacate the property by September 1, 2010.