Opinion ID: 2447003
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Striking of Affirmative Defenses

Text: Ms. Oh's answer raised twelve affirmative defenses in response to NCRC's condemnation complaint. She asserts on appeal that the trial court erred in striking each of her affirmative defenses, but her brief specifically mentions only two of the defenses: that the taking of the property was for a private use and not for a public use or public purpose and that the taking was speculative, pretextual and/or unnecessary. [3] The court struck the first of these defenses on the ground that Ms. Oh's answer present[ed] no facts or circumstances from which the Court can conclude that the actions of the City Council and NCRC are anything but an exercise of their lawful authority. The court found it unclear what Ms. Oh meant in asserting that the taking of the property was speculative, pretextual and/or unnecessary, but struck this second defense on the grounds that the Council's determination that the condemnation was necessary to abate blight in the area and to bring about economic development undermin[ed] any notion that NCRC's actions are unnecessary, and that Ms. Oh had not presented[,] and there is nothing in the record to suggest[,] that the taking of the property is either speculative or pretextual. [4] The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution allows the government to take private property for a public use or purpose as long as it pays just compensation. [5] United States Const. amend. V; Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut, 545 U.S. 469, 479, 125 S.Ct. 2655, 162 L.Ed.2d 439 (2005). In Kelo, the United States Supreme Court explicitly held that promoting economic development is a traditional and long accepted function of government, which qualifies as a public purpose indistinguishable from other public purposes. Kelo, 545 U.S. at 484, 125 S.Ct. 2655. The Kelo Court recognized, however, that a government may not take property under the mere pretext of a public purpose, when its actual purpose [is] to bestow a private benefit. Id. at 478, 125 S.Ct. 2655. And, while there is a long-standing policy of deference to legislative judgments in this field, id. at 480, 125 S.Ct. 2655, this court has noted that there may be situations where a court should not take at face value what the legislature has said. The government will rarely acknowledge that it is acting for a forbidden reason, so a property owner must in some circumstances be allowed to allege and to demonstrate that the stated public purpose for the condemnation is pretextual. Franco I, 930 A.2d at 169. This court's jurisprudence instructs that a motion to strike a defense as insufficient will be denied `if [the defense] fairly presents a question of law or fact which the court ought to hear.' Franco I, 930 A.2d at 166 (quoting Securities & Exchange Comm'n v. Gulf & Western Indus., Inc., 502 F.Supp. 343, 345 (D.D.C.1980)). Thus, a court should not grant a motion to strike if the insufficiency of the defense is not clearly apparent, or if it raises factual issues that should be determined on a hearing on the merits. Franco I, 930 A.2d at 166-67 (quoting 5C CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT & ARTHUR R. MILLER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE: Civil 3D § 1381, at 427-28 (2004)). Our case law makes clear, however, that for an affirmative defense to stand (in the sense of entitling the defendant to proceed with discovery as to the defense), facts establishing the elements of the defense must be particularized in some detail. Patterson v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Co., 277 A.2d 111, 114 (D.C.1971). Unless facts supporting an affirmative defense are particularized in an answer or are detailed on the face of the complaint, an affirmative defense expressed only as a legal conclusion is insufficient. Patterson, 277 A.2d at 114; Whitener v. Washington Metro. Area Transit Auth., 505 A.2d 457, 460 (D.C. 1986) (citing authority that a conclusory statute-of-limitations defense may stand where the defense is apparent from the face of the complaint); see also Shechter v. Comptroller of City of New York, 79 F.3d 265, 270 (2d Cir.1996) ([a]ffirmative defenses which amount to nothing more than mere conclusions of law and are not warranted by any asserted facts have no efficacy.) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted); Barnidge v. United States, 101 F.2d 295, 297 (8th Cir.1939) (Admitting the facts pleaded [in answer], but not [condemnee's] conclusions of law[.]). [6] Applying these standards, we can find no error in the trial court's decision to strike Ms. Oh's pretext defenses. Neither Ms. Oh's answer nor the face of the complaint alleges a single fact that supports her assertion that the taking is for a private use under the pretext of a public purpose. [7] The only statement found in Ms. Oh's answer that arguably could bolster her pretext defense is her statement that [d]efendant denies that blighted, hazardous, and distressed conditions currently exist at the Skyland Site, but this statement fails to allege facts that could be described as specific or detailed. Moreover, the statement does not take into account that eminent domain may be exercised for the public purpose of creating jobs and developing [an] area to create conditions that would prevent ... blight in the future. Kelo, 545 U.S. at 474, 485 n. 13, 125 S.Ct. 2655 (emphasis added) (citing Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26, 34-35, 75 S.Ct. 98, 99 L.Ed. 27 (1954)). The Council's stated purpose in authorizing the taking of Skyland properties was not only to eliminate blight, hazards, and distressed conditions, but also to promote the provision of job opportunities and retail options for residents. Skyland Act, Bill 15-752 at 6, (Nov. 3, 2004). Because, standing alone, the allegation in Ms. Oh's answer about the absence of blighted, hazardous, and distressed conditions at Skyland did not constitute a legally sufficient defense, [8] the court was permitted to strike the affirmative defense of pretext that the allegation purported to support. See Super. Ct. Civ. R. 12(f) (authorizing the trial court to strike any insufficient defense). Our ruling in Franco I does not require a different result. As recounted in that opinion, in July 2005, NCRC filed a complaint to condemn a Skyland property owned by Samuel Franco. Franco I, 930 A.2d at 164. In his answer, Mr. Franco raised seven affirmative defenses, including a pretext defense that alleged that the Skyland Act would authorize the taking of said property for a private use and not for a public use or purpose by, among other things, having as its purpose conferring a private benefit on a particular private party, stating pretextually a public purpose but having as its actual purpose bestowing a private benefit[.] Id. at 169. The wording of Mr. Franco's affirmative defense is quite similar to the wording of Ms. Oh's pretext defenses. See supra. However, unlike Ms. Oh's answer, Mr. Franco's answer included six detailed counterclaims in addition to his affirmative defenses. Franco I, 930 A.2d at 162, 170. The trial court in Franco I granted NCRC's motions to strike all of Mr. Franco's defenses and counterclaims, concluding that they were legally insufficient. Id. at 164. This court found on appeal, however, that Mr. Franco's first counterclaim contained many specific factual allegations to support this [pretext] claim. [9] Id. at 170. In light of these detailed allegations, we concluded that Mr. Franco had sufficiently pled his pretext defense, and we therefore reversed the trial court's decision and remanded for further proceedings. Id. at 162. Ms. Oh urges us to adopt the Franco I panel's resolution and to reverse the trial court's order granting the motion to strike her pretext defense. However, since Ms. Oh's answer does not contain detailed counterclaims comparable to those in Mr. Franco's complaint or other detailed allegations of the type on which the Franco I panel based its determination, we cannot rely on the outcome of Franco I to conclude that Ms. Oh's pretext defense should have been allowed to stand. To the contrary, our holding here appropriately echoes what we observed in Franco I about Mr. Franco's affirmative defenses standing alone: These allegations [of pretext] may be too conclusory by themselves to survive a motion to strike. Franco I, 930 A.2d at 170. In sum, given Ms. Oh's conclusory pretext defense, unsupported by factual detail in her answer or the complaint, we conclude that the trial court did not err in striking the defense. [10]