Opinion ID: 2559108
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: the year 2000 cppa amendments

Text: At issue in these cases is whether in amending D.C.Code § 28-3905(k) in 2000, the Council intended to eliminate the constitutional standing requirement to which this court has adhered. D.C.Code § 28-3905(k) (2001) now specifies: (k)(1) A person, whether acting for the interests of itself, its members, or the general public, may bring an action under this chapter in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia seeking relief from the use by any person of a trade practice in violation of a law of the District of Columbia and may recover or obtain the following remedies: (A) treble damages, or $1,500 per violation, whichever is greater, payable to the consumer; (B) reasonable attorney's fees; (C) punitive damages; (D) an injunction against the use of the unlawful trade practice; (E) in representative actions, additional relief as may be necessary to restore to the consumer money or property, real or personal, which may have been acquired by means of the unlawful trade practice; or (F) any other relief which the court deems proper. (2) The remedies or penalties provided by this chapter are cumulative and in addition to other remedies or penalties provided by law. Nothing in this chapter shall prevent any person who is injured by a trade practice in violation of a law of the District of Columbia within the jurisdiction of the Department from exercising any right or seeking any remedy to which the person might be entitled or from filing any complaint with any other agency. Prior to the amendments in 2000, D.C.Code § 28-3905(k) (1981) (1996 Repl.) provided: (1) Any consumer who suffers any damage as a result of the use or employment by any person of a trade practice in violation of a law of the District of Columbia within the jurisdiction of the Department may bring an action in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to recover or obtain any of the following: (A) treble damages; (B) reasonable attorneys' fees; (C) punitive damages; (D) Any other relief which the court deems proper. (2) Nothing in this chapter shall prevent any person who is injured by a trade practice in violation of a law of the District of Columbia within the jurisdiction of the Department from exercising any right or seeking any remedy to which the person might be entitled or from filing any complaint with any other agency. The amendment to § 28-3905(k)(1) in part resulted in elimination of the language [a]ny consumer who suffers damage [40] and the insertion instead of [a] person, whether acting in the interests of itself, its members, or the general public . . . seeking relief from . . . . The Council also added to subsection (k)(1) additional remedies. The amendment to subsection (k)(2) specified the cumulative nature of the remedies in the CPPA statute.
The parties, and amici curiae who presented oral argument, disagree on how to determine the Council's intent in enacting amendments to the CPPA. They also reach different conclusions as to whether the Council intended to eliminate this court's constitutional standing requirement. Appellants contend that the issue for this [c]ourt is a simple question of statutory construction of the meaning of the 2000 amendments to the CPPA, and that when it enacted those amendments, the Council [] deliberately and specifically eliminated the requirements of injury in fact and causation in representative actions. [41] Appellees reject what they describe as the plain language argument of appellants; they argue that there is no language in the amended statute that states that the Council intended to jettison well-settled District law and allowfor the first time evera plaintiff to bring an action without alleging injury-in-fact (emphasis in original). In its amici curiae brief supporting appellants, the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia asserts: [W]hatever prudential limits this [c]ourt may choose to adopt for lawsuits asserting common-law or constitutional causes of action, a legislature may override such prudential limits by granting an express right of action to persons who otherwise would be barred by prudential standing rules. The [ ] Council did precisely that when it enacted the 2000 amendments to the CPPA: After the amendments, a person may bring a CPPA action on behalf of the general public, whether or not that person has suffered an injury. But the District of Columbia, as amicus curiae in support of appellees, declares: There is nothing explicit, either in the CPPA as amended or in the legislative history of the CPPA amendments, that demonstrates an affirmative intent by the Council to displace the usual standing requirement that a plaintiffunless asserting associational standing on behalf of its membersbe either injured or threatened with imminent injury. Although the Division [of this court in the panel's Grayson decision] had a reasonable basis to conclude that the CPPA as amended does not incorporate that requirement, the en banc [c]ourt should not rule, absent clearer evidence, that such was the Council's intent. We next set forth the principles of statutory construction that will guide our analysis, and then we examine the Council's intent in enacting the year 2000 CPPA amendments.
In interpreting statutes, judicial tribunals seek to discern the intent of the legislature and, as necessary, whether that intent is consistent with fundamental principles of law: In construing a statute the primary rule is to ascertain and give effect to legislative intent and to give legislative words their natural meaning; [s]hould effort be made to broaden the meaning of statutory language by mere inference or surmise or speculation, we might well defeat true [legislative] intent. [42] The words of a statute are a primary index but not the sole index to legislative intent; the words cannot prevail over strong contrary indications in the legislative history . . . . [43] And, [words] are inexact tools at best and for that reason there is wisely no rule of law forbidding resort to explanatory legislative history no matter how clear the words may appear on superficial examination. [44] In that regard, we presume[ ] [that the legislature] acted rationally and reasonably, and we eschew interpretations that lead to unreasonable results. [45] Statutory interpretation is a holistic endeavor, and, at a minimum, must account for a statute's full text, language as well as punctuation, structure, and subject matter. [46] A basic principle [of statutory interpretation] is that each provision of the statute should be construed so as to give effect to all of the statute's provisions, not rendering any provision superfluous. [47]
After reviewing the issue presented to usthe Council's intent regarding this court's constitutional standing requirement and its 2000 amendments to the CPPAand the widely varying interpretations of those amendments presented by the parties and the cited amici, we are persuaded that the 2000 amendments, viewed in the context of the legislative and drafting history of those amendments, do not reveal an explicit intent of the Council to erase the constitutional standing requirement to which this court has adhered during the past several decades. The words of the statutory provisions alone are inexact tools for ascertaining the Council's intent; this is a situation requiring resort to explanatory legislative history. We can gain an understanding of the meaning of the 2000 amendments by examining both the internal and external context [48] of the amended statute, that is, the words and the legislative and drafting history of the amendments. [49] The starting point for our understanding of the Council's intent is the essential purpose of the CPPA, which has remained unchanged throughout the CPPA's history. The CPPA was enacted to assure that a just mechanism exists to remedy all improper trade practices. [50] While the CPPA's essential purpose has remained constant through the years, funding and fiscal problems compelled a change in the enforcement scheme. [51] The nature of that change also is critical to our determination of the legislative intent regarding the 2000 amendments. According to the legislative history of the CPPA, the District of Columbia Office of Consumer Protection, the legislative predecessor of the District's Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA), initially had the responsibility of evaluating consumer complaints against vendors and taking legal action on behalf of the consumers. [52] In addition, consumer victims of unlawful trade practices could file a lawsuit directly against an allegedly offending merchant. [53] When DCRA was established, the functions of the Office of Consumer Protection were transferred to DCRA. [54] DCRA created an Office of Compliance to investigate consumer complaints about unlawful trade practices, and to refer appropriate complaints to other agencies for prosecution. [55] The District experienced severe fiscal problems in 1995, and as a consequence, the Council suspended DCRA's consumer protection enforcement role, until October 1, 1998, by eliminating its funding, in order to balance the District's general fund operating budget and to alleviate cash shortfalls. [56] The Antitrust, Trade Regulation and Consumer Affairs Section of the District of Columbia Bar (D.C. Bar Section) recommended changes in the consumer protection enforcement mechanism in April 1999. [57] The D.C. Bar Report served as a road map for the Council's 2000 amendments to the CPPA; there were three major recommendations: (1) extend to the Office of the Corporation Counsel [now the Office of the Attorney General, District of Columbia] a range of enforcement authority comparable to that exercised previously by DCRA . . . .; (2) provide public interest organizations and private attorneys the ability to seek injunctive relief and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains in the public interest; and (3) reestablish a single point of entry for consumer complaints. [58] These recommendations formed the nucleus of proposed legislation developed by the legislative committee of the Public-Private Working Group on Consumer Affairs. [59] The D.C. Bar Section sent the proposed legislation to the Council's Committee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs. [60] In explaining the rationale for the proposed amendments to D.C.Code § 28-3905(k)(1), [61] the drafters appeared to focus on preventive enforcement through injunctive action, and disgorgement of unlawful gains by merchants. They envisioned government coordination with public interest organizations as an additional funding source (private and donated funds) for consumer protection enforcement. The drafters' explanatory rationale stated, in part: Currently it is not possible to bring a consumer action to stop illegal conduct until after a victim suffers injury. This amendment allows, for example, an organization that monitors fraud against the elderly to petition the court to stop a misleading and a fraudulent mailing in the public interest without waiting for a senior citizen to lose his or her life savings.. . . This will also allow the government to coordinate with the non-profit and private sectors more efficiently . . . . Public interest organizations will be able to bring additional resources to consumer protection enforcement in the District, contributing private and donated funds that will advance public priorities without causing the expenditure of additional government resources. Proposed subsections (d) and (e) provide for injunctive relief and disgorgement of ill-gotten gain in representative actions, respectively. Although, injunctive relief presumably is available under current law pursuant to § 28-3905(k)(1)(e), this amendment codifies this presumption to eliminate any statutory ambiguity. Disgorgement has been recognized as an essential element of consumer protection law. [62] The drafters' rationale for the changes to D.C.Code § 28-3905(k)(1) referenced the California consumer protection law generally, first by citing to California Business and Professions Code Sections 17200 et seq., without any explicit reference to the California statutory provision [§ 17535] that reportedly eliminated the constitutional standing or injury in fact requirement; [63] and by citing Bank of the West v. Superior Court, 2 Cal.4th 1254, 10 Cal.Rptr.2d 538, 547, 833 P.2d 545 (1992) (en banc) (quoting Fletcher v. Security Pac. Nat'l Bank, 23 Cal.3d 442, 451, 153 Cal.Rptr. 28, 591 P.2d 51 (1979)). [64] Another California case was cited by the drafters in the rationale for part of the recommended amendment to D.C.Code § 28-3901(b); that recommended amendment is now implicitly part of D.C.Code § 28-3905(k)(1). [65] Significantly, we interpret the statutory language, seeking relief from the use by any person of a trade practice in violation of a law of the District of Columbia, as consistent with our long-enduring constitutional standing requirement since we discern no clear or explicit intent on the part of the Council to disturb or override that requirement. Both the Council's Committee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs and the Committee of the Whole considered the proposed legislation drafted in response to the D.C. Bar Report. While the Committee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs adopted many of the provisions recommended by the D.C. Bar Section, the Committee made several changes to the language of the proposed legislation prior to submitting it for consideration by the Committee of the Whole. [66] The proposed CPPA legislation was folded into proposed comprehensive budget support legislation, which covered a wide range of subjects, including victims of violent crime compensation, historic preservation reorganization, public school matters, rental housing, water and sewer repairs, and Medicaid reimbursement. [67] The 2000 budget act continued the defunding of DCRA consumer protection under the CPPA. The key CPPA amendments in the proposed budget support act were the following: (1) D.C.Code § 28-3901(c): This chapter shall be construed and applied liberally to promote its purpose. (2) Amendments to D.C.Code §§ 28-3905(k)(1) and (2). (3) Amendments to D.C.Code § 28-3909 to reflect the consumer protection enforcement authority of the Office of the Corporation Counsel. [68] Neither the Ambrose Committee Report nor the Cropp Committee Report made any mention of this court's constitutional standing requirement. The Ambrose Committee Report generally repeated the explanatory rationale set forth in the draft legislation transmitted to OCC on April 30, 1999. [69] The Cropp Committee Report basically summarized the proposed CPPA amendments and included a fiscal impact statement. Tapes of the hearings for the first and second readings of the budget support act reveal no discussion of the CPPA amendments or the court's constitutional standing requirement. [70] In sum, our review of the legislative and drafting history of the 2000 CPPA amendments convinces us that the Council expressed no intent to override or disturb this court's constitutional standing requirement; and that in light of that history, focusing solely on statutory words, cf. Beard, supra , which at first blush may appear to be crystal clear, would produce the unintended result of overturning our long-enduring legal principles governing constitutional standing; it also would open our courts to any person from anywhere who decides to lodge a complaint labeled as a representative action under the CPPA, even though that person has suffered no injury-in-fact related to a District of Columbia merchant's unlawful trade practice. [71] Elimination of our constitutional standing requirement would be so unusual that we will not lightly infer such intent on the part of the Council. Thus, without a clear expression of an intent by the Council to eliminate our constitutional standing requirement, we conclude that a lawsuit under the CPPA does not relieve a plaintiff of the requirement to show a concrete injury-in-fact to himself. Having decided that the Council expressed no intent to override or disturb our constitutional standing requirement, we now turn to the task of discerning what the Council did intend in adopting the 2000 amendments to the CPPA. First, it is absolutely clear that the Council intended to give the OCC, now the District's OAG, a larger role in consumer protection enforcement in order to replace DCRA. Thus, the Council amended D.C.Code § 28-3909(a) to give OAG authority to recover restitution for property lost or damages suffered by consumers as a consequence of the unlawful act or practice. In addition, the Council empowered OAG to recover a civil penalty for each [CPPA] violation (D.C.Code § 28-3909(b)); and it authorized OAG to take seven other actions (D.C.Code § 28-3909(c)), including represent[ing] the interests of consumers before administrative and regulatory agencies and legislative bodies, and negotiat[ing] and enter[ing] into agreements for compliance by merchants with [ ] provisions [of the CPPA]. Second, the Council expressed its intent that the CPPA be considered a remedial statute by explicitly stating that [t]his chapter shall be construed and applied liberally to promote its purpose, D.C.Code § 28-3901(c); that is, the purpose of assur[ing] that a just mechanism exists to remedy all improper trade practices and deter the continuing use of such practices. D.C.Code § 28-3901(b)(1). In interpreting the mandate to liberally construe and apply the CPPA's provisions, we do not speculate and infer that the Council sought to eliminate our injury-in-fact requirement. Rather, our reading of the legislative and drafting history indicates that the Council expressly sought to augment the remedies available to enforce the CPPA under a revised § 28-3905(k)(1) by providing for injunctive relief and merchant disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, see, e.g., D.C.Code § 28-3905(k)(1)(D)-(E) (2001), and by expanding OAG's CPPA authority. We are mindful that statutory interpretation is a holistic endeavor [72] and that we should construe each provision of the statute . . . so as to give effect to all of the statute's provisions, not rendering any provision superfluous. [73] In that regard, we read § 28-3905(k)(1) and § 28-3905(k)(2) together to discern the Council's intent regarding our constitutional standing requirement. We conclude that while the amendment to § 28-3905(k)(1) enlarges the category of persons authorized to bring a CPPA enforcement action, the modification to § 28-3905(k)(2) focuses on the cumulative nature of the CPPA remedies, [74] but leaves intact key language which buttresses our conclusion that, read in light of the legislative and drafting history, the 2000 amendments to the CPPA do not evidence an intent by the Council to override or disturb our constitutional standing requirement. The unchanged sentence pertains to another right or remedy to which any person who is injured by a[n unlawful] trade practice . . . might be entitled. A reasonable interpretation of this language is that a person who brings a CPPA enforcement action must have suffered or must be in imminent danger of suffering an injury-in-fact. Thus, when read together, subsection (k)(1) identifies those who may bring a CPPA enforcement action, and subsection (k)(2) focuses on the nature of the remedies in the CPPA chapter and other rights and remedies outside the chapter which might be available to a person who is injured or in imminent danger of being injured by an unlawful trade practice.