Court Opinion

ID: 9649408
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:52:28.304881+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:10.496946
License: Public Domain

NEBEKER, Associate Judge,
with whom HARRIS, Associate Judge, joins, concurring:
With this case having been heard en banc, I am free to reject a major premise of the majority holding. I do, however, concur in the result.
The majority, in my view, continues to misconstrue D.C.Code 1973, § 1-1510, when it holds that a contested case is one requiring a trial-type hearing in what it calls an “adjudicatory” proceeding. Chevy Chase Citizens Association v. District of Columbia Council, D.C.App., 327 A.2d 310 (1974). To impose such an interpretation on § 1-1510 runs afoul of D.C.Code 1973, § 11-722 (which was enacted after § 1-1510 *425to bring existing judicial review of all local agencies within the purview of one reviewing tribunal, namely, this court). However, I do not see that petitioner is entitled to any kind of hearing on its request for a zoning amendment. The only hearing required by statute is a “public hearing” if the Commission is inclined to grant the request or otherwise amend a zoning classification. See D.C.Code 1973, § 5-415. As part of its request for a change, petitioner has submitted evidence and argument in support of its views. It thus has been dealt with lawfully. An application for a change and an opportunity to submit reasons or views in support of the request is not a hearing within the meaning of § 1-1510. Since these proceedings do not fall within the contested case criteria articulated by the dissenting views in the Chevy Chase opinions,1 I agree that the petition herein should be dismissed. i
Following this rationale, I find it unnecessary to make an analysis of the nature of the administrative action involved. It is oversimplistic to take as decisive a generic view of a particular administrative decision and place it on a red or black square depending on whether the decision-making process resembles a legislative or an adjudicatory judgment. To be sure, the nature of the decision is a factor in making such a determination. However, two additional factors are the full context in which that decision is made, and the effect and its immediacy on persons seeking redress as well as on those opposed to the action. It must be remembered that nowhere in the District of Columbia Administrative Procedure Act is the term “contested case” elevated to the pinnacle of a formal trial-type hearing. The terms “legislative” and “adjudicatory” which are used in the majority opinion— and which formed the basis for the majority’s decision in the Chevy Chase case, supra — are nowhere to be found in that Act, but regrettably now provide the ambiguous touchstones of our judicial construction.
Ambiguity of their utterances is characteristic of oracles. In this way they protect their own infallibility. For if the suppliant interprets their message in one way, and this fails, the oracle can protest that it meant something quite different. So the Greeks having consulted the priestesses of Delphi before the Battle of Thermopylae were bidden to ‘Look to the wooden walls’ and left to decide for themselves whether this meant building a stockade or using their navy. [W. Rutherford, Ballantine’s Illustrated Battle History of World War II, Kasserine Baptism of Fire, Book No. 18, at 107-08 (1970).]

. 327 A.2d at 321; 307 A.2d at 747-48.