Opinion ID: 662404
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Were Defendants Owners of Tyler House Before the Bankruptcy?

Text: 6 For the defendants to be liable for breach of the implied warranty of habitability, they must have been owners of the premises under the D.C.Housing Code. The Code defines owner as: 7 any person who, alone or jointly or severally with others, meets either of the following criteria: 8 (a) Has legal title to any building arranged, designed or used (in whole or in part) to house one or more habitations; or 9 (b) Has charge, care, or control of any building arranged, designed, or used (in whole or in part) to house one or more habitations, as owner or agent of the owner, or as a fiduciary of the estate of the owner or any officer appointed by the court. Any persons representing the actual owner shall be bound to comply with the terms of this title and any notice or rules and regulations issued pursuant to this title, to the same extent as if he or she were the owner. 10 14 D.C.M.R. Sec. 199.1. 11 Defendants are not subject to paragraph (a), because they did not hold legal title to Tyler House--their now-bankrupt corporations did. But under paragraph (b), a person who has charge, care, or control ... as owner or agent of the owner can be an owner even if he does not hold legal title. See District of Columbia v. Eck, 476 A.2d 687, 688 n. 1 (D.C.1984). Therefore, if the jury found that defendants were owners because they had actual control of Tyler House as owners then the verdict must be sustained. 12 But defendants argue that the district court's instruction allowed for a broader definition of owner than the Code permits. The district court instructed the jury that an owner can be any person who has charge, care, or control as owner or agent of the owner of any building arranged, designed, or used to house one or more dwelling units. The court further instructed that if the jury found that any of the defendants had charge, care, or control of Tyler House, or were representatives of either THAL or PISI, then [the jury] must find that any one or all of them were owners of Tyler House. (Emphasis added.) Finally, with respect to ownership of Tyler House after the record owners declared bankruptcy, the district court charged the jury that if it found that the defendants were owners of Tyler House before bankruptcy, 13 you should consider whether the defendants continued to be responsible as owners, as I have just described the term, after bankruptcy filing on May 30, '89. You should determine whether the defendants had charge, care, or control of Tyler House as owner or agent of the owner between May 30, '89, and August 4, '89. 14 Defendants read the court's instruction to construe owner to include any person[ ] representing the owner, regardless of whether the representative had charge, care, or control. Defendants interpret the Code's language, persons representing the actual owner to mean that a representative of the owner must comply with relevant provisions of the Code; but they argue that it does not expand the definition of the word owner to make a representative independently liable. (Presumably the actual owner is liable, under the defendants' interpretation, for his representative's infractions, but the representative is not liable for her own.) Defendants object that under the court's interpretation practically any employee might be a person representing the actual owner, who would be treated as an owner under the Housing Code. 15 Although the district court's instruction was somewhat hazy, we do not think the jury could have believed the definition of owner covered any employee of the actual owner. Reading the court's instruction as a whole, it limits the definition to those who, like defendants, seek to avoid the sanctions of the Housing Code through corporate formalities. See generally Anderson v. Abbott, 321 U.S. 349 (1944) (limited liability for corporate form not absolute where corporation is undercapitalized and limited liability frustrates public policy). The instruction thus treats the issue of whether defendants were owners under the Housing Code as essentially an exercise in piercing the corporate veil. 16 In the context of this case, the judge's discussion of piercing the veil should have made it clear that the issue was whether defendants were in direct control of the premises as alter egos of the corporations holding record title, and not merely whether they were representatives of those corporations in some broader sense. Thus, we need not decide whether a broad construction of the Code's persons representing the owner language would be a proper interpretation of the statute, because the district court's construction was not as broad as defendants assert. Indeed, we think the court's construction was narrow enough to pass muster under any plausible reading of the Code. 17