Benson Hotel Corporation v. Woods
| Decision Date | 11 June 1948 |
| Docket Number | No. 13704.,13704. |
| Parties | BENSON HOTEL CORPORATION v. WOODS. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Rolf Ueland, of Minneapolis, Minn. (Marcus G. Sundheim, of Minneapolis, Minn., on the brief), for appellant.
Cecil H. Lichliter, Special Litigation Attorney, Office of the Housing Expediter, of Washington, D. C. (Ed Dupree, General Counsel and Hugo V. Prucha, Asst. General Counsel, both of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellee.
Before GARDNER, WOODROUGH and COLLET, Circuit Judges.
This appeal is from an interlocutory judgment for a preliminary injunction enjoining appellant from collecting rents from tenants at Hotel Leamington. We shall refer to the parties as they were designated in the trial court.
The Acting Housing Expediter as plaintiff brought this action under the Housing and Rent Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 1881 et seq., to enjoin defendant from charging over-ceiling rents for the use and occupancy of certain housing accommodation units at Hotel Leamington, from removing or evicting, or attempting to remove or evict any tenant of such rooms or housing accommodation units because of refusal to pay as rent any amount in excess of the maximum legal rent established, and to compel refunds to tenants of any over-ceiling rents already collected. Defendant in its answer counterclaimed, asking an injunction restraining plaintiff from interfering in any manner with its collection of rents from its tenants. Each of the parties interposed a motion for a preliminary injunction. These motions were heard together and resulted in an interlocutory judgment which granted plaintiff's motion and denied that of defendant. At the hearing there was no oral testimony, but the facts were presented in the form of the verified complaint of the plaintiff, the verified answer of the defendant, insofar as the allegations of these pleadings were not denied, upon affidavits accompanying the motion papers, and a stipulation of facts.
Hotel Leamington is a ten-story building, occupying an entire city block of frontage near the middle of the business district of Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is operated for both transient and permanent guests, and on June 30, 1947, it contained 338 units of which 123 were transient and 215 were permanent. It was conceded that the transient units were all decontrolled by O.P.A. Regulation of February, 1947, and of the 215 permanent units 25 were concededly decontrolled, leaving 190 permanent units involved. The plaintiff contends that these provided less than the required services to entitle them to qualify as decontrolled. Each of these 190 units consisted of one or more rooms and in addition a kitchen and bath. They are all occupied by permanent or resident guests, as distinguished from transient guests. Of the services specified in the Act all units had bellboy service, telephone and secretarial or desk service; 66 had complete furniture service; 115 had partial furniture service; 31 had furnishing and laundering of linen; 7 had maid service. Each of these services, though not used by a particular tenant was available to him. In addition to these services there were available to all the tenants the customary hotel services, such as elevator service, baggage check room service, dining room service, meal service in rooms, cleaning and window washing service, taxi calling service, and maintenance of public parlors and washrooms. For the additional services and for the partial furniture service there was no charge other than the basis rental charge for the unit but extra charges were added for regular furniture service, linen service and maid service.
It was the contention of defendant, among other things, (1) that Section 202(c) of the Act was self-executing and the Housing Expediter had no right to promulgate regulations requiring any action by him before an establishment is decontrolled; (2) that the regulations as applied by the Housing Expediter were not consistent with the Act and hence invalid; (3) that the tenants of all the units were "provided" within the meaning of this term as used in both the Act and Regulation, with all services which were required for decontrol.
Under the Decontrol Act units in a hotel such as Hotel Leamington were not to be controlled if "occupied by persons who are provided customarily with hotel services such as" certain specified services, namely, "maid service, furnishing and laundering of linen, telephone and secretarial or desk service, use and upkeep of furniture and fixtures, and bellboy service." The original Regulation, issued to take effect July 1, 1947, undertook to define controlled housing accommodations and in doing so followed the above quoted language of the Act, but by amendment issued August 8, 1947, it changed the words "such as" to "including", and it was accordingly held that all of the services were required to be provided. It was contended by defendant that Section 202(c) of the Act did not apply to the units here in controversy because as here used the word "provide" meant to make available.
The trial court in granting the temporary injunction held adversely to these contentions of the defendant.
On this appeal it is contended that, (1) the Act itself decontrolled the units; (2) the Regulation was invalid because inconsistent with and not authorized by the Act; (3) the interpretations and order by the office of the Housing Expediter were not valid because arbitrary and inconsistent with both the Act and the Regulation; (4) that since the granting of the injunction pendente lite in this case, both the Act and the Regulation promulgated thereunder have been amended in such manner as to indicate clearly what the law was at the time of the granting of the injunction, and that these amendments indicate that it is not necessary for decontrol of hotel units that all of the specified services be provided, and that services are provided if they are available.
In our view of the issues it is not necessary to go into further detail in stating the facts nor the specific questions...
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