Court Opinion

ID: 9727170
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:23:05.102155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:34.366591
License: Public Domain

SCHWELB, Associate Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the judgment and agree with most of the court’s opinion, but I have two brief comments:
1. In the next-to-last sentence of the opinion, the court seems to contemplate the possibility — no more than a possibility — that, on remand, the Commission’s findings “would lead to only one conclusion on the record, viz, non-willfulness,” and that in these circumstances a remand to the ALJ would,not be necessary. I suppose that this possibility theoretically exists, especially in the absence of a transcript of the evidentiary hearing. Nevertheless, absent extraordinary circumstances, a finding that Borger (the housing provider) allowed Miller to have a dog when he was not a member of a tenant organization, but told him to get rid of the dog after he joined the organization, would surely at least permit,a reasqnable inference that Borger’s retaliatory action was willful. In my view, it would, in most circumstances, be contrary to common sense to conclude that such a sequence of events must have been coincidental or otherwise not willful. If (1) Borger, a major landlord, really did not know that it was against the law to condition Mr. Miller’s right to have a dog on not joining a tenant organization, if (2) Borger adduced testimony to that effect, if (3) the trier of fact believed that testimony, and if (4) there was no contrary evidence— an extraordinarily improbable scenario — then perhaps a finding of non-willfulness would perhaps be mandated.1 Short of a situation as extreme as that, however, I am satisfied that an inference of willfulness would be at least permissible.2
2. Mr. Miller has asked the court to reinstitute a fine against Borger which the RHC has set aside. The fine would go to the public coffers, not to Mr. Miller. The question that naturally comes to mind in this situation is whether Mr. Miller has suffered “injury in fact” sufficient to give him standing to challenge the RHC’s action. This issue is complicated by the reality that, so far as I can discern, nobody other than Mr. Miller would have standing to complain. This would present an interesting question for a law school examination, but we need not reach it here because the RHC has not challenged Mr. Miller’s standing in this court.

. Borger has not participated in the proceedings in this court, and no one has suggested that the evidence before the ALJ showed anything like the scenario described in the text preceding this footnote. The RHC may, of course, direct the ALJ to take further evidence.

. I am basing my conclusion on an apparently undisputed sequence of events; perhaps it will assist the ALJ and the RHC to make the finding required by the remand. In its opinion, the court does not assert that Mr. Miller has waived the right to argue on remand along the lines described in this concurrence, and I therefore do not address any question of waiver.