Opinion ID: 1938216
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Preservation of the issue in this court.

Text: In requesting this court to set aside the present Commission's decision, Goodman filed a Petition for Review of Agency Action. In conjunction with that petition, he submitted what he characterized as a Supplemental Memorandum in Lieu of Brief. Appended to the latter document were several earlier memoranda which Goodman had prepared in support of his own motion for summary reversal and in opposition to Graybill's motion for summary affirmance. [15] In his petition for review, Goodman did not allude to the issue of lack of notice at all. In his supplemental memorandum, however, he identified one part of the fifteenth of his eighteen issues presented as being whether the status of an exemption claim is affected by the landlord's violation of the statutory requirement that he advise prospective tenants in writing that a given building is not covered by rent control.... In one of the motions memoranda appended to his Supplemental Memorandum in Lieu of Brief, Goodman claimed that Landlord never gave me or other tenants or prospective tenants the notice required by the Rental Housing acts that the unit[s] are not regulated by rent stabilization. Our Rule 15(c), which governs this court's review of agency orders, requires that [a] concise statement of the nature of the proceedings as to which review is sought and the grounds on which petitioner relies and concerning which error is alleged shall be set forth in the petition. Our Rule 28(a) directs that briefs in this court include a statement of the issues presented for review. Obviously, Goodman's submissions reflect something less than flawless formal compliance with these Rules. [16] Nevertheless, Graybill was adequately apprised of Goodman's claim with respect to notice of the exemption. Indeed, Graybill devoted a substantial portion of his brief in this court to the merits of the issue. Our Rules, like the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, reject the approach that pleading is a game of skill in which one misstep by counsel [17] may be decisive to the outcome.... Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 48, 78 S.Ct. 99, 103, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957); see also Frain v. District of Columbia, 572 A.2d 447 at 452 (D.C. March 30, 1990). Given the subject matter of this appeal and our adoption of the approach exemplified by the decisions in Love and Coles, we conclude that Goodman has not waived, by his filings in this court or by any omission from them, his right to assert his claim that he did not receive notice of Graybill's exemption.