Opinion ID: 1540617
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Clarification Act

Text: Having established that the plain meaning of the Sale Act of 1980 does not bring the Master Lease within its reach, we must next examine whether the same result still obtains in light of a subsequent clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary. Consumer Product Safety Comm'n, supra, 447 U.S. at 108, 100 S.Ct. at 2056. Nowhere in the extensive legislative history of the Sale Act prior to its consideration of the Clarification Act did the Council suggest that entering into an arrangement such as the Master Lease would trigger a tenant's right of first refusal. Nonetheless, in the Report of the Committee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs regarding the Clarification Act, the Committee stated that Bill 8-188 merely clarifies the original intention of the Council when it passed the Rental Housing Conversion and Sale Act of 1980. Accordingly, the report states that the Committee feels that the use of any agreement which transfers rights that are associated with ownership would make any transfer of tenant-occupied property subject to review. And the Council is only seeking to clarify its original intent.  COMMITTEE ON CONSUMER AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS, REPORT ON THE TENANT OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE CLARIFICATION AMENDMENT ACT OF 1989, at 7 (1989) (emphasis supplied). As explained above in Part I, section 3, of this opinion, the Act went on to redefine the term sale in a manner that plainly mirrored the terms of the Master Lease involved in this case. We must now consider what weight to give to this retroactive expression of intent, an expression set forth not merely in the legislative history of the Clarification Act, but in the statutory language itself. Subsequent legislation which declares the intent of an earlier law is not, of course, conclusive in determining what the previous Congress meant. Federal Hous. Admin. v. Darlington, Inc., 358 U.S. 84, 90, 79 S.Ct. 141, 145, 3 L.Ed.2d 132 (1958). However, the later law is entitled to weight when it comes to the problem of construction. Id. [26] See also United States v. Price, 361 U.S. 304, 313, 80 S.Ct. 326, 331-32, 4 L.Ed.2d 334 (1960) (the views of a subsequent Congress form a hazardous basis for inferring the intent of an earlier one); Mackey v. Lanier Collection Agency & Serv., Inc., 486 U.S. 825, 839, 108 S.Ct. 2182, 2190-91, 100 L.Ed.2d 836 (1988) (opinion of later Congress as to the meaning of a law enacted 10 years earlier does not control the issue); United Air Lines, Inc. v. McMann, 434 U.S. 192, 200 n. 7, 98 S.Ct. 444, 449 n. 7, 54 L.Ed.2d 402 (1977) (Legislative observations 10 years after passage of the Act are in no sense part of the legislative history); Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc. v. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., 282 U.S.App.D.C. 89, 94 n. 5, 892 F.2d 105, 110 n. 5 (1989) ([T]he pronouncements of a subsequent Congress, here 13 years after the passage of ERISA, are notoriously unreliable indicators of the intent of Congress at the time of passage, and we give very little weight to such revisionist legislative history). We deem not to the contrary Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. F.C.C., 395 U.S. 367, 89 S.Ct. 1794, 23 L.Ed.2d 371 (1969), where the Supreme Court upheld Congressional legislation which codified a thirty-year agency interpretation of the statutory term public interest. There, the Court spoke of the venerable principle that the construction of a statute by those charged with its execution should be followed unless there are compelling indications that it is wrong. Id. at 381, 89 S.Ct. at 1802. Here, however, the Clarification Act's retroactive definition of the word sale is at variance with both the common usage of the term sale and the understanding of the meaning of the Sale Act of those charged with its administration. Accordingly, the retroactive interpretation in question here does not deserve the same deferential treatment accorded in Red Lion. Moreover, it is appropriate to take note of the views of the Director of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA), the agency charged with enforcing the Sale Act, who testified concerning the Clarification Act that: This proposed legislation would define certain transactions as sales for the purpose of the Rental Housing and Conversion and Sale Act. These transactions, involving leases and purchase options, transfer many of the benefits of ownership but are currently not defined as sales and therefore do not trigger the tenants' opportunity to purchase provisions of the Conversion and Sale Act. If passed, the amendment would expand the current definition of sale to include .... [specifying features of lease which would make it a sale]. Executive testimony of Donald G. Murray before the Committee on Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, April 27, 1989 (emphasis supplied). [27] We have already concluded that the Sale Act, as it read before the adoption of the Clarification Act, simply did not apply to an agreement such as the Master Lease. It is also entirely clear from our discussion above of the Bond Act that, so long as the Master Lease did not trigger the Sale Act of 1980, the conduct of GWU was consistent with the assurances the university had given in connection with the enactment of the Bond Act. [28] For the reasons we have stated in this section, we find unavailing the retroactive indication of legislative intent expressed in the Clarification Act with respect to the meaning of the term sale. At the time the Master Lease was entered into by appellees, it did not constitute a sale. Thus, appellants can prevail here only if the Clarification Act had the effect of retroactively changing the definition of the term sale so as to convert the 1988 Master Lease from a lease into a sale. We turn therefore to consider the retroactive effect, if any, of the Clarification Act upon the Master Lease, consideration which implicates the Contracts Clause of the United States Constitution.