Court Opinion

ID: 9447636
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:39:51.021165+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:07.443419
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I join in the opinion of the court. I wish only to comment on the statement therein that “This court cannot hold a trial court to be in error in failing to decide an issue not put before it in a civil action. Brown v. Rudberg, 1948, 84 U.S.App.D.C. 221, 171 F.2d 831.”1 Admittedly, a trial court may not be held in error in these circumstances. But it does not follow that we can never decide such an issue or remand a case to the District Court with directions to decide it.
“There may always be exceptional cases or particular circumstances which will prompt a reviewing or appellate court, where injustice might otherwise result, to consider questions of law which were neither pressed nor passed upon by the court *244or administrative agency below. See Blair v. Oesterlein Machine Co., 275 U.S. 220, 225, 48 S.Ct. 87, 88, 72 L.Ed. 249.” Hormel v. Helvering, 1941, 312 U.S. 552, 557, 61 S.Ct. 719, 721, 85 L.Ed. 1037.
See also Ward v. Anderson, 1953, 93 U.S.App.D.C. 156, 158-159, 208 F.2d 48, 50-51.

. In tliat case, although this court refused to consider a contention which had not been raised below, we noted that the District Court had made an express finding of fact which would have precluded the new contention.