Court Opinion

ID: 9699585
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:34:32.667174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:44:03.786443
License: Public Domain

PAIR, Associate Judge, Retired
(dissenting) :
I am unable to agree with my colleagues that we should permit enforcement of appellant’s judgment against appellees Robert and Ibula Boyd (the Boyds). In the first place, the judgment is of very doubtful validity in my opinion. Of course, as a general rule this court may not go behind a judgment to inquire as to its validity. However, the court cannot escape its responsibility to examine the record brought here for review.
What appears from the record is that appellant commenced in the Civil Division of the Superior Court an action entitled “Complaint on a Promissory Note.”1 The note, made under seal by the Boyds on December 23, 1970, was payable to a credit union in installments. Appellant alleged in its sworn complaint2 that it was the as-signee of the credit union and as such was entitled to the balance due on the note. Appellant obtained judgment against the Boyds 3 for $1,386.41, representing the balance due on the note, plus interest from March 24, 1972 at 1% per month to date of *365judgment and 6% per annum thereafter, and attorney’s fees equal to 20% of the sum of the principal and interest due and owing at that time. There is no record showing of any challenge to appellant’s standing to maintain, in its own name and right, the action on the promissory note. However, it does not escape attention (1) that as provided in D.C.Code 1973, § 28:3-201(3), -202, a promissory note such as the one here involved may be transferred only by endorsement and (2) that D.C.Code 1973, § 28:3-301 provides that only the holder of such an instrument may maintain an action thereon. See and compare Bonuso v. Shroyer Loan & Finance Co., D.C.Mun.App., 37 A.2d 760 (1944).
Thus, absent an endorsement of the note, whatever claim there was against the Boyds that was assigned to appellant it could not properly have been the claim of the credit union on the promissory note. We note from the record that appellant has at all times been identified as assignee of the credit union. Under the circumstances it is extremely doubtful that the trial court had jurisdiction of either the subject matter which was the promissory note or the credit union — the real party in interest. See also Wolf v. Paving Supply and Equipment Company, D.C.Mun.App., 154 A.2d 544 (1959); cf. York Blouse Corp. v. Kaplowitz Bros., Inc., D.C.Mun. App., 97 A.2d 465 (1953). What we are asked to sanction therefore is the enforcement of a judgment obtained contrary to controlling acts of Congress and a rule of the very court4 in which satisfaction was sought.
But whatever view may be taken as to the validity of appellant’s judgment against the Boyds, I cannot agree with my colleagues that J. H. Marshall & Associates, Inc. v. Burleson, D.C.App., 313 A.2d 587 (1973), must be applied prospectively only. We held in that case that a collection agency cannot lawfully interpose itself between a creditor and an attorney employed to collect the creditor’s debt and that “[t]o do so either directly or indirectly, by an assignment or otherwise . . .” constitutes the unauthorized practice of law. Accordingly, J. H. Marshall and any other collection agency in the District was
[Ejnjoined, from and after [December 28, 1973], from . . . instituting or maintaining legal actions for others; and appropriating to its own use as attorney fees sums adjudged against debtors on assigned claims except when such judgment is its bona fide property. [Id. at 600; emphasis supplied.]
A prospective application of Marshall, as proposed in the majority opinion, would permit appellant and any other collection agency which obtained a judgment on an assigned claim, prior to that decision, to enforce it “[i]f there is no unauthorized practice by the agency in the process . ,”5 See Bump v. Barnett, 235 Iowa 308, 16 N.W.2d 579, 584 (1944).
What the majority says is that:
While Marshall did not specifically speak to this question, we hold it was (and should have been) the intent of this court that it be applied prospectively only, .
The apparent difficulty with this holding is that the Marshall division of the court declared to the contrary in language crystal clear saying that collection agencies are “enjoined, from and after [December 28, *3661973], from . . . instituting or maintaining legal actions for others . . .” on assigned claims.
The words “from and after” like the words “on and after” are words of retro-spectivity. They are simple words of plain and ordinary meaning. The term
“On and after” is a flowing and not a static concept of time; it is a description of time in a successive and continuous sequence of days; it fixes a beginning point from which the succeeding time area it describes becomes enlarged. Application of Sipal Realty Corporation, 5 A.D.2d 84, 168 N.Y.S.2d 840, 842 (1957).
The conclusion seems compelled, therefore, that the words “from and after this date”, employed in the Marshall decision must have been intended to mean precisely what they say, i. e., that no collection agency may thereafter institute or maintain a legal action to collect a debt on an assigned claim.
With every due respect for my distinguished colleagues, I question their authority to modify or overrule, in effect, the Marshall decision or to substitute their judgment as to what was intended by the language employed in the injunction. I deem it to have been settled by M.A.P. v. Ryan, D.C.App., 285 A.2d 310, 312 (1971), that as a matter of internal policy “no division of this court will overrule a prior decision of this court . . . .” [Footnote omitted.]
My colleagues, relying upon Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618, 85 S.Ct. 1731, 14 L.Ed.2d 601 (1965) say, however, that in the interest of justice, Marshall must be applied prospectively only. Significantly enough the Supreme Court in the Linklet-ter case cited and quoted with approval from the opinion of Chief Justice Marshall, which has remained undisturbed for more than 170 years. Said the Court in a footnote at 381 U.S. 623, 85 S.Ct. 1734:
8. It is interesting to note, however, that as early as 1801, Chief Justice Marshall in United States v. Schooner Peggy, 1 Cranch 103, 2 L.Ed. 49, had made clear that
“if subsequent to the judgment [in the trial court] and before the decision of the appellate court, a law intervenes and positively changes the rule which governs * * * the court must decide according to existing laws, and if it be necessary to set aside a judgment * * * which cannot be affirmed but in violation of law, the judgment must be set aside.” 1 Cranch at 110.
‡ % % * * %
See also Vandenbark v. Owens-Illinois Glass Co., 311 U.S. 538, 61 S.Ct. 347, 85 L.Ed. 327 (1941), and Kuhn v. Fairmont Coal Co., 215 U.S. 349, 372, 30 S.Ct. 140, 54 L.Ed. 228 (1910) (Holmes, J., dissenting). District of Columbia v. Linda Pollin Mem. Hous. Corp., D.C.App., 313 A.2d 579 (1973).
But, say my colleagues, if we refuse to permit enforcement of the judgment, a serious constitutional problem will arise. I am unable to share their concern. From this record it is too clear for discussion that appellant’s interest, if any, in the judgment is limited to its contingent fee arrangement which may include the right to an attorney’s fee equal to 20% of the sum of the principal and interest due at the time the judgment is satisfied.6 And in my view it makes no difference that the judgment stands in the name of the appellant, because it is undisputed in this record that the bona fide interest in the judgment is in the credit union, either as payee of the promissory note7 or as assignor of *367whatever other claim was assigned to appellant.
Nevertheless, my colleagues say that because the activity of collection agencies, outlawed by J. H. Marshall and Associates, Inc. v. Burleson, supra, had been sanctioned for such a long time, it would be inequitable and not required by any compelling public policy consideration to deny enforcement of appellant’s judgment. The short answer to this is what was said above. This division of the court may not modify or overrule, in effect, a prior decision of the court. Moreover, if there are equities and public policy considerations other than those that influenced the decision in Marshall it would appear that, for reasons indicated above, they are more favorable to the Boyds than to the collection agency. I am not therefore persuaded that this judgment possesses such sanctity that it should be enforced notwithstanding J. H. Marshall and Associates, Inc. v. Burleson, supra, which in my opinion is controlling.
Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.

. A copy of the note was attached to the complaint and is a part of the record.

. The credit union was not a party to the action.

. There is no record showing that appellant was, for the purposes of D.C.Code 1973, § 28:3-301, -302, the holder of the note or that it was otherwise the real party in interest for the purposes of Super.Ct.Civ.R. 17(a). Cf. District of Columbia v. Hamilton, Nat. Bank of Washington, D.C.Mun.App., 76 A.2d 60 (1950).

. Super.Ct.Civ.R. 17(a) :
Real Party In Interest. Every action shall be prosecuted in the name of the real party in interest. . . . [A] party authorized by statute may sue in his own name without joining with him the party for whose benefit the action is brought.

. My colleagues do not suggest bow, in obtaining satisfaction of the judgment by legal process, appellant can avoid the restrictions of the Marshall injunction. In the concurring opinion it seems to be suggested that perhaps appellant has a vested interest in the fruits of its unauthorized practice of law which this court is required to honor.

. At oral argument appellant’s lawyer indicated that he would waive the attorney’s fee. But he made no such waiver at the trial and on his demand the fee was included in the judgment.

. A promissory note is not a chose in action and therefore may not be assigned pursuant to D.C.Code 1973, § 28-2303, so as to permit a person other than the holder to maintain an action thereon in his own name.