Court Opinion

ID: 9644466
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:57:04.394714+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:13.893549
License: Public Domain

GALLAGHER, Associate Judge.
For reasons exceedingly important to the orderly administration of justice, a hearing division of this court is prohibited from issuing an opinion which conflicts materially with a prior decision of this court as this may be done only by the court sitting en banc. M. A. P. v. Ryan, D.C.App., 285 A.2d 310 (1971). The opinion in this case expressly disclaims that it conflicts with our prior en banc decision in Environmental Research International v. Lockwood Greene Engineers, Inc., D.C.App., 355 A.2d 808 (1976) (en banc). This seems to me to insure against any future claim that the opinion here overturns in any essential, by implication, our prior en banc opinion in Environmental Research if only because a hearing division is powerless to do so.1 Consequently, it seems beyond serious dispute that Environmental Research is left intact. I interpret the majority vote against going en banc as necessarily incorporating the same considerations I express. If I thought otherwise, I would feel required by law to vote to go en banc as, I feel certain, would all other judges of the court.

. The court’s opinion goes so far as to say the facts in Lockwood Greene are not even so much as “similar” to those in this case (At 1370). I note, too, the court’s significant statement:
This decision is based on the pleadings, as well as on supplementary facts proffered of record and not contested. We acknowledge that an eventual factual showing that materially differs from the record to date could raise the jurisdictional issue anew. [At 1372 n.5; citations omitted.]