Opinion ID: 2551230
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: TOPA must be interpreted to favor the tenant's right to purchase.

Text: The court concedes, as it must, that because TOPA uses the word provide in connection with the tenant's expression of interest to purchase the property, the statute is not clear on its face as to whether the tenant must ensure receipt or simply send the expression of interest within the thirty-day period that the statute prescribes. See ante at 1130 (To be sure, our task would have been simpler if the Council had used the word `deliver' instead of `provide' ...). The court, therefore, is forced to choose among dictionary sub-meanings of the word provide ( e.g., furnish rather than submit) and draw analogies to other parts of the statute (and even different statutory schemes) to conclude that when the statute says the tenant shall ... provide an expression of interest to purchase within thirty days, it meant to require that the owner must receive the notice within the thirty-day period. As I pointed out in my dissent from the division opinion, however, the TOPA statute uses the word receipt advisedly in several provisions. Tippett v. Daly, 964 A.2d 606, 615 (D.C.2009) (Ruiz, J., dissenting). Indeed, the word receipt is used twice in the very section at issue in this case, D.C.Code § 42-3404.09(1) (Upon receipt of a written offer of sale from the owner ..., or upon the Mayor's receipt of a copy of the written offer of sale, whichever is later, the tenant shall have thirty days to provide ....). We must assume that if it had intended to require receipt by the owner before the end date of the thirty-day period, the Council would similarly have used the word receipt as it did, in the same statutory section, in identifying receipt by the tenant of the owner's offer of sale as the starting date for the thirty-day period to respond. [1] It did not; instead, it chose to use provide. The Council's use of provide either is purposeful in imposing a less stringent obligation on tenants than on owners, or, at a minimum, is ambiguous. What the Council has done without equivocation is tell us how the court should interpret any ambiguity in the statute. In the TOPA statute itself is a rule of interpretation that requires that the tenant be given the benefit of the doubt where the court has to determine whether provide is to be read as imposing an obligation on tenants to ensure receipt by a date certain, on pain of losing the right to purchase created by the statute. D.C.Code § 42-3405.11 states: Statutory construction. The purposes of this chapter favor resolution of ambiguity by the hearing officer or a court toward the end of strengthening the legal rights of tenants or tenant organizations to the maximum extent permissible under law.... D.C.Code § 42-3405.11. Under the express terms of the statute, therefore, the court is duty-bound to resolve any ambiguity in the term provide in favor of the tenant to the maximum extent permissible under law. See Janes v. State, 350 Md. 284, 711 A.2d 1319, 1328 n. 9 (1998) (As we held more than 70 years ago ... the Legislature may `declare in the body of the act the construction to be placed thereon, and the courts are bound by such construction, and all other parts of the act must yield.' (citing Montgomery County Motor Co. v. State, 147 Md. 232, 127 A. 637, 638 (1925))). The mandate to resolve any ambiguity in favor of the tenant requires us to interpret provide to mean send, and not, as the court does, to require that the tenant deliver or ensure receipt by the owner. It should be obvious that it is beneficial to tenants to have more time, not less, to consider and respond to an offer of sale. The court's attempt to persuade that its interpretation could benefit tenants as well as owners, ante at 1134, is belied by the arguments made to the court: both the tenant in this appeal and the Chief Tenant Advocate of the District of Columbia Office of the Tenant Advocate (who urged the court to rehear the case en banc in order to reverse the division's interpretation that the full court now affirms) disagree that the court's interpretation redounds to the benefit of tenants. [2] Moreover, the court is simply wrong when it says that interpreting the word provide to require receipt by the owner (rather than mailing by the tenant) will benefit tenants because other sections of the statute, §§ 42-3404.03(4) and -3404.09(2), also use the word provide when imposing an obligation on owners to make certain information concerning the offer and the housing accommodation available to tenants. See ante at 1132-33. What the court ignores in making that assertion is that, as already discussed, TOPA expressly states that the tenant's thirty-day period to respond begins upon receipt by the tenant of the offer of sale. D.C.Code § 42-3404.09(1). TOPA also provides that once the tenant expresses interest in purchasing and the reasonable period to negotiate is commenced, a day is added to the negotiation period for every day that the owner delays in providing requested information. See § 42-3404.09(2). The TOPA statute, in other words, in its design leans in favor of preserving the tenant's right to purchase, by ensuring that the time periods allowed to the tenant for responding to an offer of sale and subsequent negotiation are not infringed by the owner's delay. Instead, the court is interpreting the statute in the manner which it thinks will result in the most efficient procedure. See ante at 1132-33. Even if the court's scheme is a better one, however, it is not our job as judges to fix what we think is faulty legislation, but to interpret the statute that was enacted and implement it so as to effectuate legislative intent. [3] The statutory language dispensing with use of the word receipt in favor of provide when speaking of the tenant's expression of interest to purchase, when coupled with the statutory mandate to interpret any ambiguity in TOPA's use of the word provide in favor of strengthening the legal rights of tenants, D.C.Code § 42-3405.11, should be more than sufficient to establish that the Council intended the word provide to mean sent. But the Council has taken a further step to remove all doubt that the court's contrary conclusion is mistaken. Promptly after the division opinion interpreting the statutory language tenant shall have thirty days to provide to mean owner must receive within thirty days was issued on February 5, 2009, see 964 A.2d 606, the Council took action to tell the court that it had misinterpreted TOPA. By March 3, 2009, an emergency bill (D.C. Bill 18-170) and a temporary bill (D.C. Bill 18-171) were introduced with a Resolution [t]o declare the existence of an emergency with respect to the need to clarify ... that actual receipt of the letter by the housing provider or the Mayor within the relevant time frame is not required. See Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Preservation Clarification Emergency Declaration Resolution of 2009, 56 D.C.Reg. 2120 (Mar. 3, 2009). Criticizing the division opinion by referring to District law [that] requires that the court interpret any ambiguities in the act in favor of tenants, the Resolution clarif[ies] the Council's intent that tenants have the full thirty days provided by law to express an interest in purchasing their unit following an offer of sale from the landlord. Id. The Resolution, which took effect immediately, was adopted unanimously. Id. at 2121. After two other emergency and temporary bills, the legislative clarification was enacted on May 19, 2010, and became effective as permanent legislation on July 23, 2010. See Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Preservation and Clarification Amendment Act of 2010, 57 D.C.Reg. 4510 (May 19, 2010). [4] Now comes the court, several months after the Council's clarifying amendment has been adopted as permanent legislation, to declare that the Council actually intended the opposite of what it has so emphatically and consistently expressed. In light of the clarifying amendment, the majority recognizes that its opinion is unlikely to have any impact beyond precluding the right to purchase of the appellant in this case. That would have been reason enough to reconsider the wisdom of according en banc imprimatur to the division's split opinion. Beyond the particular statutory provision (and litigant) in this case, however, there is other mischief the full court's opinion could visit on future cases that require interpretation of TOPA or other statutes that contain a similar rule of statutory construction. See, e.g., D.C.Code § 42-1903.02(f) (stating that the section authorizing condominium declarant control shall be strictly construed to protect the rights of the unit owners). What is at the core of my dissent is the proper role of the court vis à vis the legislature whether it be the Council of the District of Columbia or the Congress of the United Stateswhen it comes to interpreting a statute. Our role as judges is to effectuate legislative will. Without a doubt there are cases when courts must fill in blanks or choose between alternative interpretations when confronted with ambiguous or inadequate statutory language, whether the ambiguities and inadequacies are inadvertent or the result of legislators' inability or unwillingness to see eye-to-eye. Courts faced with such a task must do the best they can with the interpretive tools available to them, with the knowledge that their interpretation can be overridden if the legislature considers that the court got it wrong. But this is not one of those difficult cases. Where the legislature has spoken clearly in a matter within its competence, there is no need for judges to use proxies for legislative will. In this case, the legislature enacted a provision in TOPA telling the court that when a choice is to be made, it must tilt in favor of tenants. Moreover, when a division of the court failed to do so, the legislature told the court in no uncertain terms that it got it wrong in the division opinion, passed a Resolution, and consecutive emergency, temporary and, most recently, permanent legislation to correct it. Yet the full court persists in its contrary view of what the statute means. Due regard for the legislature's express intent compels me to dissent. [5]