Opinion ID: 2559108
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 12

Heading: Did the Congress bind the District of Columbia courts to the article III case or controversy requirement for standing?

Text: No one questions the Council's authority to remove prudential limits on standing and we have decided that the Council has done so, for example, in the D.C. Human Rights law. See Executive Sandwich Shoppe, Inc. v. Carr Realty Corp., 749 A.2d 724, 733 (D.C.2000). The question remains whether the Council may go beyond removing prudential limits, and eliminate the basic injury-in-fact requirement. I conclude that it can, and, as discussed in the previous section, that it did so in creating a private cause of action in the CPPA. As the majority notes, since 1971, when the Congress enacted court reorganization legislation that created the current structure of the District of Columbia courts, we have adopted the Constitutional case or controversy requirement that limits the jurisdiction of courts created by Congress pursuant to article III of the United States Constitution. The first cases arose under the D.C. Administrative Procedure Act, enacted by Congress, which by its terms permits us to entertain only petitions brought by [a]ny person suffering a legal wrong, or adversely affected or aggrieved, by an order or decision of the Mayor or an agency in a contested case. . . .' Lee v. District of Columbia Bd. Of Appeals & Review, 423 A.2d 210, 215 (D.C.1980) (quoting D.C.Code § 1-1510 (1978 Supp.)). We have extended that basic standing requirement even when not expressly required by statutory language (as in the D.C. Administrative Procedure Act), but as a number of our cases make clear, that has been a choice that the court has made not a mandate we must followbecause the D.C. courts were created by Congress pursuant to article I of the Constitution, not article III. See D.C.Code § 11-101(2). As a result, although we have for the most part followed federal jurisprudence as to what constitutes injury-in-fact sufficient to satisfy the case or controversy requirement, see Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975), we have also on occasion felt at liberty to diverge from the Supreme Court's standing jurisprudence in certain limited circumstances, dealing primarily, for example, with the mootness doctrine applicable to cases that are capable of repetition yet avoid review in the pretrial detention area. See Tyler v. United States, 705 A.2d 270, 273 (D.C. 1997) (en banc) (citing Lynch v. United States, 557 A.2d 580, 582 (D.C.1989), and distinguishing Murphy v. Hunt, 455 U.S. 478, 482, 102 S.Ct. 1181, 71 L.Ed.2d 353 (1982)); cf., Hardesty v. Draper, 687 A.2d 1368, 1373 (D.C.1997) (concluding that case was moot where issue was not capable of repetition yet evading review even as to another litigant). In this regard, I agree with Judge Reid's opinion for the division: [T]he constitutional and prudential standing principles this court imposes are not mandatory. Those principles originally evolved as a mechanism to enforce the mandate of Article III of the Constitution that federal courts have jurisdiction only in `cases' and `controversies.' Lee v. District of Columbia Bd. of Appeals & Review, 423 A.2d 210, 216 n. 13 (1980) (citing Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498-99, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975)) (other citation omitted). In creating this court . . . Congress provided that we, like the federal courts, should hear only `[cases] and controversies.' Id. (citing D.C.Code § 11-705(b); United States v. Cummings, 301 A.2d 229, 231 (D.C.1973) (per curiam)). Thus, we have generally adhered to that requirement in determining whether a party has standing before this court. See Riverside Hosp. v. District of Columbia Dep't of Health, 944 A.2d 1098, 1103-04 (D.C.2008) (citing Speyer v. Barry, 588 A.2d 1147, 1160 (D.C.1991); D.C.Code § 11-705(b) (2001)); see also Friends of Tilden Park, Inc., v. District of Columbia, 806 A.2d 1201, 1206 (D.C.2002). Nevertheless, this court is not bound by the case or controversy requirement of Article III. See, e.g., Palmore v. United States, 411 U.S. 389, 397, 93 S.Ct. 1670, 36 L.Ed.2d 342 (1973); see also Atchison v. District of Columbia, 585 A.2d 150, 153 (D.C.1991) (stating that this court . . . enjoys flexibility in regard to [the case or controversy requirement] not possessed by the federal courts). This is especially true when the Council has provided a cause of action. See DeGroot v. DeGroot, 939 A.2d 664, 668 (D.C.2008) (the Superior Court is `a court of general jurisdiction,' and `has jurisdiction of any civil action or other matter (at law or in equity) brought in the District of Columbia.'). Grayson v. AT & T Corp., 980 A.2d 1137, 1155 n. 78 (D.C.2009), reh'g en banc granted, opinion vacated, 989 A.2d 709 (D.C.2010). [9] A contrary interpretation would overrule any number of opinions in which we have consistently come to the conclusion that, as article I courts, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals are not bound by article III's case or controversy limitation. That consistent interpretation is well-supported by express Congressional intent, that the District of Columbia's court system is to be comparable to those of the states and other large municipalities. Pernell v. Southall Realty, 416 U.S. 363, 367, 94 S.Ct. 1723, 40 L.Ed.2d 198 (1974) (quoting H.R.Rep. No. 91-907, at 23 (1970)); see S.Rep. No. 91-405, at 18 (1969) (stating that [b]y creating the local courts under authority granted by article I of the Constitution, the local District of Columbia court structure is not bound by the provisions found in article III of the Constitution). Thus, we have said, unlike the federal courts, the Superior Court is a court of general jurisdiction and courts of the District of Columbia have powers analogous to those of state courts. District of Columbia v. Group Insurance Administration, 633 A.2d 2, 13 (D.C.1993) (quoting Reichman v. Franklin Simon Corp., 392 A.2d 9, 12 (D.C.1978)). This court is to be similar to a state Supreme court. H.R.Rep. No. 91-907, at 23. The Constitution's case or controversy limitation is a crucial distinction between federal and state courts. For example, in the case of a plaintiff who had alleged no personal stake in the outcome of the case, the plaintiff could proceed as a private attorney general under the state courts in California, which are not bound by the case or controversy requirement, but not in the federal courts. Nike, Inc. v. Kasky, 539 U.S. 654, 661 & n. 2, 123 S.Ct. 2554, 156 L.Ed.2d 580 (2003). The distinction is rooted in the limited powers of the federal government and the historical role of state courts. In City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), the Supreme Court explained that whereas federal mootness principles precluded a federal court from granting injunctive relief to a man who had been the subject on an unlawful choke hold by police because he was not likely to be imminently similarly injured, id. at 111, 103 S.Ct. 1660, the states had no similar disability and may permit their courts to use injunctions to oversee the conduct of law enforcement authorities on a continuing basis. Id. at 113, 103 S.Ct. 1660. Notwithstanding the express statements by both houses of Congress and our sustained interpretive history of the source and reach of the authority of the D.C. courts, appellees point to D.C.Code § 11-705(b) as indicating that Congress did, after all, mean to impose the constitutional case or controversy limitation on the judicial power of the D.C. courts. If so, it would be a jurisdictional limitation that the Council may not alter. See D.C.Code § 1-206.02(a)(4). [10] I disagree that the Congress intended to introduce indirectly, via § 11-705(b), a limitation that it expressly disclaimed when creating the D.C. courts. Section 11-705(b) provides: Cases and controversies shall be heard and determined by divisions of the [Court of Appeals] unless a hearing or a rehearing before the court en banc is ordered. Each division of the court shall consist of three judges. D.C.Code § 11-705(b). It is interesting to note, first, that this provision has never been deemed by this court to present an impediment to our decision, in the limited cases mentioned above, to diverge from the Supreme Court's jurisprudence interpreting the injury-in-fact requirement inherent in the case or controversy limitation. Nor has it been cited as a reason for our adoption of article III's injury-in-fact requirement. That we have done voluntarily to promote sound judicial economy and in recognition of the concept that an adversary system can best adjudicate real, not abstract conflicts. District of Columbia v. Walters, 319 A.2d 332, 338 n. 13 (D.C.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 1065, 95 S.Ct. 650, 42 L.Ed.2d 661 (1974). Moreover, the substantive import that appellees would have us read into § 11-705(b)'s use of case or controversy language is not supported by the article I source of Constitutional authority expressly cited by the Congress in creating and granting judicial power to the D.C. courts: The judicial power in the District of Columbia is vested in the following courts: (1) The following federal courts established pursuant to article III of the Constitution: (A) The Supreme Court of the United States. (B) The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. (C) The United States District Court for the District of Columbia. (2) The following District of Columbia courts established pursuant to article I of the Constitution: (A) The District of Columbia Court of Appeals. (B) The Superior Court of the District of Columbia. D.C.Code § 11-101. Consistent with [t]he aim of the [court reorganization] Act . . . to establish `a Federal-State court system in the District of Columbia analogous to court systems in the several States,' Key v. Doyle, 434 U.S. 59, 64, 98 S.Ct. 280, 54 L.Ed.2d 238 (1977) (quoting H.R.Rep. No. 91-907, at 35), and the article I source of Congressional power invoked to create the District's courts, § 11-705(b) is properly read as an administrative provision directing the composition of divisions of the Court of Appeals in all cases other than those that are heard by the en banc court. This interpretation is consistent with the procedural nature of the other subsections of § 11-705, which deal with the order and times when the judges shall sit, id. at (a); and the procedures for selecting and hearing cases for en banc consideration, id. at (c) & (d). These procedural provisions are to be contrasted with those in D.C.Code § 11-721, which set out the jurisdiction of the D.C. Court of Appeals. To read § 11-705(b) as imposing a case or controversy limitation on the D.C. Court of Appeals would lead to truly anomalous and indeed absurd results in light of the jurisdiction that Congress clearly intended in § 11-721. As there is no provision with case or controversy language comparable to § 11-705(b) applicable to the Superior Court, it would mean that the Court of Appeals operates under a significant limitation on its power to adjudicate that does not similarly constrain the trial court over which we have appellate review of  all final orders and judgments. D.C.Code § 11-721(a)(1) (emphasis added); see D.C.Code § 11-721(b) (providing that a party aggrieved by an order or judgment of the Superior Court has a right to appeal). Alternatively, § 11-705(b) could be read to mean that the Court of Appeals need only decide cases that present a case or controversy in divisions of three, but that would mean that we have been wrong all along in thinking that adjudication of the merits of an appeal must be done by divisions comprised of three judges in all cases (other than those heard by the full court). I do not believe that the court has been misguided; rather, it has correctly understood that, as is the norm for appellate courts throughout the country, at least three judges should consider the merits of an appeal. Unfortunately, there is no legislative history to shed light on Congress's one-off use of the term case or controversy in § 11-705(b) in connection with the D.C. Court of Appeals. The likely explanation is that Congressional drafters inadvertently copied this term from an analogous provision that applies to the federal appellate courts, or used the term as shorthand for appeal without realizing its implications as a constitutional term of art. I therefore conclude that the D.C. courts have no constitutional or statutory impediment to their hearing or deciding cases that the legislature has said may be brought by a person whether acting for the interests of itself, its members, or the general public, D.C.Code § 28-3905(k)(1), even if the plaintiff has not suffered injury-in-fact.