Opinion ID: 2551230
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Recent Amendments

Text: Soon after a division of this court issued its decision on February 5, 2009, the Council of the District of Columbia amended the statute through a series of emergency, temporary, and permanent acts. The permanent legislation became effective on July 23, 2010, after the required period of congressional review. 57 D.C.Reg. 7532 (2010) (notice of effective date). This legislation amended § 42-3404.09(1) and § 42-3404.10(1) by inserting the following words and punctuation: by hand or by sending by certified mail, after the phrase provide the owner and the Mayor. See § 2(a) and § 2(b) of Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Preservation Clarification Amendment Act of 2010, D.C. Act 18-404, 57 D.C.Reg. 4510 (2010). Thus, after amendment, § 42-3404.09(1) provides in pertinent part that the tenant shall have 30 days to provide the owner and the Mayor, by hand or by sending by certified mail, with a written statement of interest. The Council asserted that this court's decision made it necessary to clarify the Council's intent that tenants have the full 30 days provided by law to express an interest in purchasing their unit following an offer of sale from the landlord. See § 2(e), (g) of the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Preservation Clarification Emergency Declaration Resolution of 2009 (emphasis added). [10] 56 D.C.Reg. 2120 (2009). Thus, the announced purpose of the amendment was to clarify that a tenant can preserve his opportunity to purchase by hand delivery or sending by certified mail [the] letter of interest and that actual receipt ... by the housing provider or the Mayor within the relevant time frame is not required. D.C. Act 18-327, Preamble, 57 D.C.Reg. 2544 (2010). The Council may have clarified TOPA for the future, but it did not purport to enact legislation that would govern this case. Given the absence of clearly expressed intent to the contrary, we presume that the amendment does not apply retroactively. See Landgraf v. USI Film Products, 511 U.S. 244, 265, 114 S.Ct. 1483, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994) (If the statute would operate retroactively, our traditional presumption teaches that it does not govern absent clear congressional intent favoring such a result.). In fact, at oral argument, the tenant's counsel assured us that the amendment operates prospectively only. Nor did the Council's action in 2009 provide meaningful assistance in discerning the intent of the predecessor Councils which enacted TOPA and later added the thirty-day deadline. In the first place, the Council did not assert that it was clarifying what the earlier legislators meant. [11] Secondly, there is serious debate and doubt as to when, if ever, a later legislature has a role in construing what an earlier legislature intended. United States Parole Comm'n v. Noble, 693 A.2d 1084, 1103 (D.C.1997), majority opinion adopted on rehearing en banc, 711 A.2d 85, 86 (D.C.1998) (en banc). [E]ven if later Councils approve [a certain interpretation of a statute], that is not necessarily valid evidence of the intent of the Council that enacted it. Id. [T]he Supreme Court often has said `the views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier one.' Winters v. Ridley, 596 A.2d 569, 579 (D.C.1991) (Ferren, J., concurring) (quoting United States v. Price, 361 U.S. 304, 313, 80 S.Ct. 326, 4 L.Ed.2d 334 (1960)). See Massachusetts v. EPA, 549 U.S. 497, 530 n. 27, 127 S.Ct. 1438, 167 L.Ed.2d 248 (2007) (quoting Price ). The hazard certainly is greatest in circumstances like these, where more than two decades have passed, and the Council that acted in 2009 did not contain any members who passed the legislation in 1980, 1983, and 1988. Cf. Winters, 596 A.2d at 578 (Schwelb, J., concurring) (Relatively little time elapsed between the enactment of the GTCA [in 1986] and the Council's actions in 1989. Most of the legislators were members of the Council at both relevant times.); United States ex rel. Long v. SCS Business & Technical Institute, Inc., 335 U.S.App.D.C. 331, 339-40, 173 F.3d 870, 878-79 (1999) (Post-enactment legislative history ... becomes of absolutely no significance when the subsequent Congress... takes on the role of a court and in its reports asserts the meaning of a prior statute.). This decision implies no disrespect for the Council, nor does it step beyond our proper role as judges. Ultimately, the interpretation of statutes is the responsibility of courts, not of subsequently elected legislative bodies. Winters, 596 A.2d at 577 (Schwelb, J., concurring) (citing Pierce v. Underwood, 487 U.S. 552, 566, 108 S.Ct. 2541, 101 L.Ed.2d 490 (1988)). In sum, nothing about the recent amendments changes our understanding of what the statute meant in 2001.