Opinion ID: 1904669
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Consumer Protection Procedures Act Claim

Text: The Tenants' Association also alleged that IMC and IMDel had violated the CPPA. However, it did not base that claim on any separate acts or omissions of the defendants that might constitute unfair trade practices. Rather, the Association explicitly linked its CPPA claim to the asserted violation of the Sale Act. [8] We agree with the trial court that the defendants were entitled to judgment on this claim. As we observed in Twin Towers, it is not clear from its plain language that the statutory scheme [the CPPA], designed to protect consumers, applies to the situation presented here. 894 A.2d at 1120. We did not need to resolve the question at that time, however. The tenants' association in Twin Towers explicitly base[d] its CPPA claim on the alleged violation of the Sale Act and, [b]ecause we [had] already held that the Sale Act [did] not apply to [that] transaction, [the] CPPA claim [could] not survive. Id. at 1120-21. The two claims are directly linked in this case, too, but we have decided that further proceedings are required to determine whether the Sale Act was violated. Rather than remand the CPPA claim as well, and perhaps require a needless expenditure of resources by the litigants and the trial court, we proceed to consider whether that Act applies; we conclude that it does not. We find no evidence in the plain language of the CPPA that the legislature intended it to apply in these circumstances. Allegations that the defendants failed to comply with the Sale Act do not fit naturally within the thirty-some detailed examples of unfair trade practices set forth in D.C.Code § 28-3904 (2001). Tellingly, some portions of § 3904 make it a violation of the CPPA for any person to violate any provision of several other statutes, but these subsections conspicuously fail to mention the Sale Act at all. [9] Moreover, there is no compelling reason to shoehorn the allegations made here into the ill-fitting language of the CPPA because the Sale Act is comprehensive legislation which not only creates the right at issue here but also establishes detailed requirements for compliance. Most importantly, the Sale Act also contains its own detailed provisions for implementation and enforcement. See D.C.Code §§ 42-3405.01 to 42-3405.13 (2001 & 2008 Supp.). Resisting the force of the better-fitted statute requires a good countervailing reason, and none appears here. EC Term of Years Trust v. United States, 550 U.S. 429, 434, 127 S.Ct. 1763, 1767, 167 L.Ed.2d 729 (2007). Indeed, the language and legislative history of the CPPA point to the opposite conclusion  that it was never intended to apply to this situation. The Act provides that [t]he Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs [DCRA] shall be the principal consumer protection agency of the District of Columbia government and shall carry out the purposes of this chapter. D.C.Code § 28-3902(a) (2001). Yet, the Council has expressly forbidden the DCRA to apply the administrative remedies of the CPPA to landlord-tenant relations. D.C.Code § 28-3903(c) (2001). [10] See Parker v. Martin, 905 A.2d 756, 763-64 (D.C.2006); Twin Towers, 894 A.2d at 1120. Nevertheless, appellant argues that we should allow private parties to apply the CPPA to landlord-tenant relations. We reject this reasoning, which rests not upon statutory language or legislative history, but rather upon an attenuated inference mistakenly drawn from an amendment to the statute which took effect in the year 2000. Prior to that time, § 28-3905(k)(1) provided in part: 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 [of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs] may bring an action in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia to recover or obtain any of the following [remedies].... (Emphasis added.) We have construed the italicized language to mean that where the Act limits the jurisdiction of the [DCRA], `the scope of the cause of action created by § 28-3905(k)(1) is similarly limited.' Childs v. Purll, 882 A.2d 227, 238 (D.C.2005) (quoting Diamond v. Davis, 680 A.2d 364, 365-66 n. 2 (D.C.1996)). However, [t]he Council of the District of Columbia amended § 28-3905(k)(1) in October 2000 ... so that the subsection no longer explicitly links the scope of private civil actions [under the CPPA] to the jurisdiction of the [DCRA].... Childs, 882 A.2d at 238. [11] We did not need to decide in Childs whether the Council intended thereby to expand the private right of action.... Id. We now hold that the Council did not intend by that amendment to extend the private right of action created by the CPPA into the realm of landlord-tenant relations. [12] There is a much more convincing explanation for the deletion of this language in October 2000. In 1995 the Council suspended DCRA enforcement of the CPPA for budgetary reasons. [13] An October 2000 amendment to D.C.Code § 28-3902(I) extended that suspension until October 1, 2002. This was a fiscal measure designed to avoid[ ] a substantial negative fiscal impact (estimated to be approximately $546,000) that would occur if the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs were required to renew this program which was first suspended in FY 1996. COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE, REPORT ON BILL 13-679, FISCAL YEAR 2001 BUDGET SUPPORT ACT OF 2000, at 26 (May 19, 2000). At the same time, the Council authorized, but did not require the Office of the Corporation Counsel to pursue consumer protection claims more aggressively, provide[d] additional remedies and potential recovery on behalf of citizens and the District government, and establishe[d] a District of Columbia Consumer Protection Fund into which increased fines and other monetary remedies would be deposited and dedicated for the purposes of consumer protection. Id. See D.C.Code §§ 28-3902(I), -3905(k), -3909, -3910, -3911 (2001). The contemporaneous amendment to § 3905(k)(1) authorized representative actions and expanded the available remedies to include minimum damages of $1,500 per violation, injunctive relief, and restitution. Because the DCRA was not enforcing the CPPA at that time, it made no sense when rewriting this section to preserve the language which linked the scope of the private action to the jurisdiction of the DCRA. More importantly, there is no indication whatsoever that the Council intended by deleting this language to expand the reach of the CPPA. Significantly, the Council did not repeal the express limitations on DCRA activities set forth in D.C.Code § 28-3903(c) (2001), and quoted in footnote 10, above. The logic of appellant's position is that the Council, although silent on the matter, intended to extend the reach of the CPPA not only to landlord-tenant relations but also to persons regulated by the Public Service Commission, to professional services of clergymen, lawyers, and Christian Science practitioners, to television or radio broadcasting stations, and to the other entities listed in footnote 10, supra. Nothing in the plain language of the statute or its legislative history indicates that the legislature intended such a dramatic expansion of the Act, and the inference on which appellant relies is much too weak to support its argument. The Superior Court properly granted summary judgment to the defendants on this claim.