Opinion ID: 1939634
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Legal Relationship Between the District and Congress

Text: Appellees attempt to persuade us that because Congress is sovereign in the District, the government of the District of Columbia is devoid of the authority necessary to enjoy municipal immunity. They contend by analogy to the relationship between a state and its municipal subdivisions that Congress is sovereign, and is thus the sole repository of sovereign immunity in the District. We disagree. The abundance of cases holding that municipal subdivisions enjoy limited immunities belies this position, and the logic underlying Congress' delegation of powers renders it completely untenable. There is general agreement that the Constitution gives Congress plenary power over the District of Columbia. [27] Thus there can be no doubt that theoretically, if Congress chose, it could govern the District directly, without the help of a municipal government or its agencies. Since Congress is sovereign in the District, it enjoys the usual sovereign immunities, including the benefit of nullum tempus. In creating a municipal government, and in ultimately granting it broad governmental powers, Congress intended, among other things, to relieve [itself] of the burden of legislating upon essentially local District matters. Home Rule Act, § 102(a) (Statement of Purposes). The Home Rule Act explicitly provides that the legislative power of the District shall extend to all rightful subjects of legislation within the District consistent with the Constitution of the United States and the provisions of this Act subject to all the restrictions and limitations imposed upon the States by the tenth section of the first article of the Constitution of the United States. Id., § 302. Thus Congress granted broad, but not exclusive, legislative powers to the District, analogous to the powers of the states, and directed to the performance of many public functions typically exercised by the government of a state. The supposition that Congress delegated to the District government all rightful subjects of legislation ... consistent with the Constitution, and established the foundations of self-rule, without also granting the District immunity under the doctrine of nullum tempus, engenders serious logical difficulties. It involves admitting that, except when Congress explicitly disapproves District legislation, it becomes the law of the jurisdiction, and that all significant public policy and public services originate with the agencies and instrumentalities of the District, yet only Congress enjoys immunity from the running of the statutes of limitations and repose. It suggests that while the District government performs practically all public functions in this jurisdiction, only Congress, which rarely participates directly in local affairs, enjoys the benefit of an immunity designed to protect those public functions. Thus, under this theory, Congress' immunity is irrelevant when the District acts, even if the District performs functionsas it mustwhich are within the scope of congressional immunity. The protection is thereby separated from its purpose, and the public, which is supposed to be the beneficiary of the immunity, is bereft of it. Of course, [t]his would be to overthrow in fact what was established in theory; ... an absurdity too gross to be insisted on. [28] It cannot be argued that Congress intended to remove this protection or diminish its own power by the mere act of delegating it to the District. Yet this is the inevitable consequence of a formalistic, rather than functionalistic, reading of the nullum tempus doctrine. Common sense counsels that the protection of nullum tempus, if it is to be meaningful, must follow the function performed, and not reside only in institutions that, as a matter of policy, refrain from exercising the functions the doctrine was designed to insulate. [29] We therefore conclude that the District of Columbia is immune from the running of the statutes of limitations and repose when it brings suit seeking to vindicate public rights and involving the performance of public functions.