1901 Wyoming Avenue Cooperative Ass'n v. Lee

• Decision Date: 30 September 1975
• Docket Number: No. 8772.,8772.
• Parties: 1901 WYOMING AVENUE COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION, a corporation, Appellant, v. Margaret D. LEE, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

345 A.2d 456

1901 WYOMING AVENUE COOPERATIVE ASSOCIATION, a corporation, Appellant, v. Margaret D. LEE, Appellee.

No. 8772.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued February 18, 1975.

Decided September 30, 1975.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Frederick C. LeComte, Washington, D. C., for appellant.

Margaret D. Lee, pro se.

Before REILLY, Chief Judge, and KELLY and NEBEKER, Associate Judges.

KELLY, Associate Judge:

Appellee's complaint in the trial court against the 1901 Wyoming Avenue Cooperative Association¹ was based upon the Association's alleged failure to repair the plumbing in her cooperative apartment, a service she claimed was her due under a Mutual Ownership Contract² signed by the parties in 1954.³ After a hearing on appellee's motion for partial summary judgment, the Association was found liable for the repair. A subsequent jury trial on the issue of damages resulted in a verdict for appellee in the sum of $7,200. On appeal, the Association asserts as error the grant of the partial summary judgment motion and the submission to the jury of counsel fees as an item of damage. We reverse.

I

Appellee Lee, owner and then occupant of an apartment at 1901 Wyoming Avenue, N.W., first noticed a decrease in the hot water supply to her bathtub in 1966. A pipe connecting the tub to the main supply system (risers) was found to have corroded. The pipe, part of the so-called feeder system, lay directly under appellee's bathroom floor. In 1968, the apartment was leased to a tenant and it has remained rental property ever since. The hot water problem again became acute in 1970. Appellee alleged in her complaint that in December of 1970 she was forced to suspend payment of her monthly operating payments, then approximately $87.50 per month, because of the Association's failure to supply adequate hot water.⁴ Appellee has continued to withhold these payments, which by September of 1973 had increased to approximately $128 per month and later to $132.50 per month. After the entry of a partial summary judgment in her favor in January, 1974, appellee had the pipe fixed at a cost of $431.22.

II

Throughout this litigation appellee has contended that the Association was bound to perform and pay for the repair under the Mutual Ownership Contract, the pertinent provision of which reads:

8. Operating Services, Utilities and Reserved: The Association shall . . . (d) provide and pay for water, heat, refrigeration and electricity, in reasonable amounts . . . (f) provide and pay for all necessary current repairs, maintenance and replacements of project property including the Member's dwelling, except that the Member shall be responsible for all interior repairs and all interior painting and decorating. . . . [Emphasis in original.]

House Rules and Regulations⁵ in effect at the time stated:

Members are advised to carry fire and extended insurance on their furniture and household goods. It is recommended that members also carry liability insurance, since they are liable for any damage done to a neighbor's apartment because of faulty plumbing and acts of carelessness. The Association, however, is responsible for any damage to apartments caused by faulty plumbing, wiring, etc., not accessible from the surface in any apartment. [1953 House Rules and Regulations, No. 11.]

This Rule was amended in 1965 to read:

a. Owners are responsible for loss of property from fire or other damage within their apartments. The Association does not carry insurance on contents of individual apartments.

b. Owners are responsible for damage caused to other apartments in the building from faulty plumbing, bad wiring, or acts of carelessness within the responsibility of the owner.

c. Owners are responsible for repairs accessible from the "surface" in any apartment, as defined by legal precedent. Except for damages caused by faulty plumbing in the main risers, which belong to the Association, damage is the responsibility of each owner.

The Rule was amended again in 1972 to read:

Owners are responsible for the loss of property from fire or other calamities within their apartments. Although the Association insures the entire building according to principles of sound management, the contents of individual apartments are not covered. An owner is liable for damage caused to other apartments by his plumbing, wiring, other personal property, or from actions within the responsibility of the owner. The owner is solely responsible for and must maintain the plumbing, wiring, etc., that serves specifically his apartment, as defined by legal precedent. For example, the Association maintains and is responsible for damages from leaks from risers, but an individual owner must maintain and is responsible for damages from leaks from the feeder pipes to his apartment. [Subsection J of Section 2; original underlining omitted.]

In submissions supporting her motion for summary judgment appellee asserted that the words "interior repairs" as used in the contract referred only to the superficial type of decorative work which an owner might ordinarily perform, not the major plumbing operation required here. The general tenor of appellee's argument has been that she has a contractual right to the repairs and that this right cannot be affected by modifications to the contract, in particular by the house rules subsequently adopted by the Association.

The Association argues that the contract placed the burden of repairing these particular pipes on appellee. It alleges that the interior of an apartment includes the area beneath the flooring but on top of the concrete slab which supports it and the area just behind the plastered surface of the walls and ceiling; in other words, the space from the concrete slab below the apartment to the concrete slab above. Thus, the interior repairs would necessarily include those for the feeder pipes. The Association implies that the feeder pipes are part of the private apartment, and not property that it owns and has authority over. The Association also contends that the division of responsibility between it and its members for repairs to plumbing has been set and followed for at least twenty years and that the present division, feeders as the responsibility of the members and risers as the responsibility of the Association, was codified in and rests in part on prior litigation.

In ruling on appellee's motion for summary judgment the motions judge concluded that the construction which the Association placed on the word "interior" was legally erroneous and not within the contemplation of the parties at the time the contact was executed. He based his decision on the fact (1) that it was reasonable to assume that water would be supplied to a fixture within an apartment as opposed to a connection inside a wall, (2) that adoption of the Association's interpretation of the document would render other [unspecified] portions of the contract meaningless, and (3) that if the contract contained ambiguities, they must be resolved against the drafter. In short, he interpreted the written contract.

Super.Ct.Civ.R. 56(c) provides that summary judgment shall be granted if the materials submitted show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Its purpose is to provide prompt disposition of cases which present only questions of law or contain unfounded claims or sham defenses.⁶ Where genuine issues of material fact exist, the parties are entitled to the due consideration provided by a full trial, even if the record before the motions judge has developed the facts as fully as a trial might.

Appellant asserts that the contract here at issue was ambiguous on its face and we agree. The meaning of the word "interior" as used in the contract was clearly open to several reasonable interpretations.⁷ A genuine issue of material fact was thus presented and the grant of summary judgment was improper.⁸ Weiss v. Kay Jewelry Stores, Inc., 152 U. S.App.D.C. 350, 352-53, 470 F.2d 1259, 1261-62 (1972); Nyhus v. Travel Management Corporation, 151 C.S.App.D.C. 269, 271-72, 466 F.2d 441), 442-43 (1972).

Appellant also objects to the manner in which the motions judge interpreted the contract, specifically, the refusal of the judge to consider the course of conduct of the parties in the twenty-odd years following the signing of the contract.

Where the court is faced with an integrated agreement which contains ambiguous terms, the standard of interpretation is "`. . . what a reasonable person in the position of the parties would have thought it meant.'"⁹ Minstar Builders, Inc. v. Beltway Excavators, Inc., D.C. App., 246 A.2d 784, 786 (1968). The presumption is that the reasonable person knows all the circumstances before and contemporaneous with the making of the integration.¹⁰ The reasonable person is also bound by all usages — habitual and customary practices — which either party knows or has reason to know.¹¹ The standard is applied to the circumstances surrounding the transaction¹² and to the course of conduct of the parties under the contract,¹³ both of which are properly considered when ambiguous terms are present. The determination of the motions judge that the extent of the Association's obligation to appellee could only be derived from the contract itself and from the House Rules in existence at the time was thus erroneous; and considering the contract without taking into account the attendant circumstances and usages and the subsequent actions¹⁴ of the parties thereunder provided him with an insufficient basis for interpreting the contract.¹⁵

The motions judge also stated in his opinion, citing Cowal v. Hopkins, D.C. App., 229 A.2d 452, 454 (1967), that if there were any ambiguities in the contract, they must be resolved against the Association, the drafter of the contract. In Cowal, a real estate broker sought payment of a commission which he claimed was due under a...