Court Opinion

ID: 9636445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 14:29:16.995765+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:46.068290
License: Public Domain

FARRELL, Associate Judge,
dissenting:
I join Judge Ruiz’s cogent opinion. I can see no reason, textual or otherwise, why the words “subject to” in § 34-2202.02(b) should not be read to mean simply that the same laws — “all laws”— “applicable to offices, agencies, departments, and instrumentalities of the District government” are likewise applicable to WASA. The court’s narrow interpretation of those words as “impos[ing] duties ... and restrictions,” but not “confer[ring] protections,” comes with no explanation of why the Council would have wanted to deny WASA, part of the District government, the same protection of notice in responding to complaints that the District has long enjoyed in operating the water and sewer system.
But even accepting the court’s reading of those two words as incorporating only statutes that subject WASA to obligations, the majority does not come to grips with the line of decisions of this court construing § 12-309 as a relinquishment by the District of traditional governmental immunity, provided it has received the notice set forth in the statute. See, e.g., Campbell v. District of Columbia, 568 A.2d 1076, 1078 (D.C.1990) (“[Bjecause § 12-309 is in derogation of the common law concept of sovereign immunity, [its notice requirement] must be strictly construed ... against waiver of immunity.”); Gwinn v. District of Columbia, 434 A.2d 1376, 1378 (D.C.1981) (“Section 12-309 constitutes a departure from the common law concept of sovereign immunity.”); Kelton v. District of Columbia, 413 A.2d 919, 920 (D.C.1980) (affirming dismissal “for failure to meet the six-month notice requirement in the District of Columbia’s statutory waiver of sovereign immunity. D.C.Code ... § 12-309.”). Although the question of what immunity the District in fact possesses is a complex one, see District of Columbia v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., 572 A.2d 394, 400, 403-04 (D.C.1989), the court has consistently held the notice requirements of § 12-309 to be part and parcel of the District’s self-imposed liability for tortious acts of its agents. By operation of § 34-2202.02(b), WASA is subject to that same declaration of amenability to suit, but on the same condition of notice.