Opinion ID: 2075955
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Contract, statute or usage.

Text: Riggs contends, reply brief at 42, that Section 15-108 is inapplicable because [t]here is no contract between Riggs and the District; no law, certainly not the UPA, makes such interest payable, and there is no usage under the UPA to the contrary. Riggs is right with respect to contract and statute, but we hold that it is wrong in its interpretation of usage. The words by law or usage in the statute might be viewed as somewhat opaque or even inscrutable. The parties have not addressed their meaning in any substantive manner in their briefs. A usage is not a legal rule but a practice in fact. Electrical Research Products, Inc. v. Gross, 120 F.2d 301, 305 (9th Cir.1941). It is a habitual or customary practice, more or less widespread, which prevails within a geographical or sociological area, Sam Levitz Furniture Co. v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 10 Ariz.App. 225, 228, 457 P.2d 938, 941 (1969), vacated on other grounds, 105 Ariz. 329, 464 P.2d 612 (1970), or, in this case, a legal area. Given these cases and the common meaning of usage, we think that the term as used in Section 15-108 refers to what is customary or usual under similar or comparable circumstances. In Kiser, supra, 170 U.S.App.D.C. at 422, 517 F.2d at 1252, the court relied on the law or usage clause in the statute in holding that pre-judgment interest was recoverable in a suit to recover accrued pension benefits despite the lack of explicit authorization in the substantive statute. It cited an earlier decision [35] awarding a beneficiary pre-judgment interest from the date when the insurer had wrongfully rejected a demand for payment. In other words, no usage regarding pre-judgment interest in pension benefit claims was required, where such interest had been held to be recoverable in a case which was viewed as analogous in principle. We think that the court's approach in Kiser to law or usage was correct. We do not believe that this phrase was designed to import any novel requirement for an award of pre-judgment interest that did not exist prior to its enactment. Moreover, a statute providing for pre-judgment interest is remedial and should be generously construed so that the wronged party can be made whole. Cf. Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 416, 95 S.Ct. 2362, 2371, 45 L.Ed.2d 280 (1975) (back pay in employment discrimination cases).
The District's UPA does not contain a provision authorizing an award of pre-judgment interest. The revised Uniform Unclaimed Property Act of 1981, drafted almost simultaneously, includes an explicit authorization. 8A Uniform Laws Annot. § 34 at 674 (1983). The authors of the District's statute were apparently familiar with the 1981 draft of the Uniform Act, and Riggs contends that by failing to enact Section 34, they must have intended to prohibit altogether awards of pre-judgment interest. We find this contention unpersuasive. Silence is a treacherous guide to legislative intent. It is not easy to discern exactly what a legislature intended when it said nothing. We think it most unlikely, however, that the Council's goal here was an implied pro tanto repeal of Section 15-108 which would deny the District make whole relief routinely available to other comparably situated creditors. Repeals by implication are not favored. P & Z Co. v. District of Columbia, 408 A.2d 1249, 1251 (D.C.1979). When two statutes are capable of coexistence, it is the duty of the courts, absent a clearly expressed [legislative] intention to the contrary, to regard each as effective. Morton v. Mancari, 417 U.S. 535, 551, 94 S.Ct. 2474, 2483, 41 L.Ed.2d 290 (1974). Only a clear repugnancy between the old law and the new results in the former giving way and then only pro tanto to the extent of the repugnancy. Georgia v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 324 U.S. 439, 457, 65 S.Ct. 716, 726, 89 L.Ed. 1051 (1945). The UPA contains no clearly expressed legislative intention to make the District's general law governing pre-judgment interest inapplicable to violations of its proscriptions. The Act neither authorizes nor prohibits such awards; it has nothing to say about the question. Cf. Duggan v. Keto, 554 A.2d 1126, 1140 (D.C.1989). Nowhere in the statutory language or legislative history is there an expression of a legislative intent to limit the effect of Section 15-108 or to give violators of the UPA exceptional protection from otherwise applicable general law. A reasonable interpretation of the Council's silence is probably that it found the enactment of the 1981 draft of Section 34 of the Uniform Act unnecessary because pre-judgment interest was already recoverable under Section 15-108. Moreover, Section 34 proposed a rate of interest higher than the District's statutory rate. D.C. Code § 28-3302(a) (1989). The Council may well have preferred a milder provision, especially in light of its somewhat draconian mandate for civil penalties in Section 42-235, discussed at pages 1256 to 1263, infra. In any event, we are not prepared to indulge a presumption, which would fly in the face of the authorities cited, that the Council intended by its silence to proscribe the award of any pre-judgment interest at all. [36] The District contends and we agree, that its entitlement to interest begins on the date that the abandoned property should have been delivered to the Mayor. A number of questions may arise as to how and at what rate the interest should be computed; e.g. whether the obligation to pay the statutory rate, see Pierce Associates, Inc., supra, 527 A.2d at 310; D.C.Code § 28-3302(a) (1981 & 1990 Supp.), is affected by any higher or lower rate which Riggs may have been paying on particular accounts. [37] These issues have not been argued to us or to the trial court in any detail, and we think it best to leave their initial resolution to the trial judge after the parties have had the opportunity to make appropriate submissions in the light of this opinion.