Opinion ID: 1936975
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Delegation, Standardlessness, and Due Process.

Text: Although they acknowledge the applicability of the presumption of constitutionality, the owners contend that the tenant consent requirement impermissibly delegates legislative authority to private citizens. They claim, in effect, that the RHCSA relegates their right to use their property as they see fit to the caprice of tenants who are free to act to promote their own private advantage rather than in the public interest. They argue that no standards are provided for the granting or withholding of consent, so that a majority of the tenants can bar conversion for a good reason, a capricious reason, a selfish reason, or no reason at all. This standardlessness, say the owners, renders the legislation unconstitutional and denies them property without due process of law. It cannot be gainsaid that, under this statutory scheme, a tenant majority may act arbitrarily, and that there is no objective standard to which they must conform. Indeed, the Council, by making it an explicit purpose of the Act to strengthen the bargaining power of tenants, [6] undoubtedly recognized that the residents of a particular rental complex might well act in their own financial interest and consent to conversion only if the owners would sweeten the pie by buying them out at an attractive price. Where the residents of one complex agree to conversion in response to their landlord's financial largesse, their parochial interest in allowing the landlord to take the affected units off the rental market may collide with the needs of tenants city-wide and with the prime goal of the legislation, which is to avoid the erosion of affordable rental housing. These criticisms of the Act may be thought plausible or persuasive, and perhaps the give and take of the political process has, in this instance as in others, produced less than perfect legislation. Perfection, however, is neither constitutionally required [7] nor practically achievable. [8] The validity of this legislation must be considered in the context of the real world, warts and all, with its hard bargaining and legislative compromises, rather than by reference to some pristine utopia of a political theorist's wistful dreams. The Council, seeking both to protect the supply of available rental housing and to reinforce the bargaining power of tenants and their organizations, elected in this instance to prohibit conversion conditionally but not absolutely, and to temper that proscription by providing, in effect, for plebiscites in affected complexes. The Act permits tenants to dispense with the protection provided by the general ban on conversions if they can negotiate a better bargain for themselves. It may not be pretty, but we do not think it is unconstitutional. Allowing a group of intended beneficiaries of legislation to waive its protection is not an impermissible delegation of legislative functions to private decisionmakers. An otherwise valid regulation is not rendered invalid simply because those whom the regulation is designed to safeguard elect to forgo its protection. New Motor Vehicle Board v. Orrin W. Fox Co., 439 U.S. 96, 109, 99 S.Ct. 403, 411, 58 L.Ed.2d 361 (1978), citing Thomas Cusack Co. v. City of Chicago, 242 U.S. 526, 37 S.Ct. 190, 61 L.Ed. 472 (1917). Where, as here, the City Council has made an appropriate finding that conversion to condominium use is presumptively contrary to the public interest and should be proscribed, it may constitutionally allow the primary beneficiaries of such a proscription to waive its benefits, even though this allows the units in question to be used in a manner which would otherwise be impermissible. Cusack, supra . Although such an arrangement countenances some private sovereignty over the fate of others and a concomitant lack of standards, the due process clause is not thereby transgressed. Cusack, on which Judge Doyle relied in this case in granting judgment for the District, upheld an ordinance prohibiting construction of billboards in residential areas without the consent of a majority of property owners in the affected blocks. The Court held that the City had not impermissibly delegated its legislative authority to private citizens by permitting the prohibition against erection to be modified with the consent of the persons who are most affected by such modification. Id. at 531, 37 S.Ct. at 192. Rather than being put at a disadvantage, the Court noted, the billboard manufacturer obviously may be benefited by this provision, for without it the prohibition of the erection of such billboards in such residence section is absolute. He who is not injured by the operation of a law or ordinance cannot be said to be deprived by it of either constitutional right or of property. Id. at 530, 37 S.Ct. at 191. [9] Of course, before private persons may legislatively acquire any say with respect to property belonging to others, the legislative regulation must itself be otherwise valid in the sense that its provisions must serve a legitimate governmental function. See Silverman v. Barry, supra, 845 F.2d at 1086. Seattle Trust Co. v. Roberge, 278 U.S. 116, 49 S.Ct. 50, 73 L.Ed. 210 (1928), on which the owners rely, is distinguishable both from Cusack and from the present case because the regulation there invalidated served no such permissible purpose. In Roberge, a zoning ordinance permitted establishment of philanthropic home[s] for children or old people only with the consent of two-thirds of the adjoining landowners. Id. 278 U.S. at 118, 49 S.Ct. at 50. In holding the ordinance unconstitutional, the Court emphasized that there had been no legislative determination that the proposed building and use would be inconsistent with public health, safety, morals or general welfare. Id. at 121, 49 S.Ct. at 51. The Court distinguished Cusack on the grounds that the legislative facts there found were sufficient to warrant the conclusion that such billboards would or were liable to endanger the safety and decency of such districts. Id. 278 U.S. at 122, 49 S.Ct. at 52. By contrast, there was no finding in Roberge that a home for the aged is liable to work any injury, inconvenience or annoyance to the community, the district, or any person. Id. The present case is like Cusack and unlike Roberge, for the Council has spelled out in detail the dangers to the public peace, health, safety, and welfare which the RHCSA was designed to address. The distinction between Cusack on the one hand and Roberge and Eubank v. City of Richmond, 226 U.S. 137, 33 S.Ct. 76, 57 L.Ed. 156 (1912) [10] on the other has precipitated some judicial [11] and other [12] criticism. We agree with our federal brethren in Silverman, however, that the Eubank-Cusack-Roberge trilogy presents a coherent set of principles sufficient to sustain the RHCSA. [13] In any event, more than half a century has passed since the Supreme Court last struck down, on due process grounds, a statute delegating Congressional authority, see Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 55 S.Ct. 837, 79 L.Ed. 1570 (1935); Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388, 55 S.Ct. 241, 79 L.Ed. 446 (1935), and we perceive little basis for concluding that the analysis in Cusack [14] will, or should, be abandoned. Given the presumption of constitutionality, the view of the United States Court of Appeals that the Act is constitutional, [15] and the continuing viability of Cusack, we find no due process violation in the RHCSA.