Atkins v. United States, No. 5786.

• Docket Nº: No. 5786.
• Citation: 283 A.2d 204
• Case Date: November 05, 1971

Page 204

283 A.2d 204 Wesley ATKINS, Juanita Irby, et al., Appellants,
v.
UNITED STATES, Appellee.
Eloulse McCRAY, Appellant,
v.
UNITED STATES, Appellee.
George W. JOHNSON et al., Appellants,
v.
UNITED STATES, Appellee. No. 5786. No. 5808. No. 5843. District of Columbia Court of Appeals. Argued September 14, 1971. Decided November 5, 1971.

John J. Baker, Washington, D. C., with whom Sharon P. Banks and Willie E. Cook, Jr., Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellants.

George O. Ackerman, Washington, D. C., with whom Charles David Nelson, J. Robert Jones and Bobby B. Stafford, Washington, D. C., were on the brief, for appellee.

Before KERN, NEBEKER and REILLY, Associate Judges.

KERN, Associate Judge.

The narrow question presented by these appeals is whether a landlord's action

Page 205

for possession of premises has become moot where the record shows only that (1) counsel for both parties represented to the trial court when the cases were called for trial that the tenants had vacated the premises sometime during an eight-month period between the filing of the complaints and trial date and (2) counsel for the tenants (appellants) moved in open court to dismiss the complaints for mootness.¹ The trial court upon these facts and without giving any reason refused to grant appellants' motion and permitted appellee to prove its case. Thereafter, it made a finding of the rent due from each appellant and entered judgments in favor of appellee.²

This court has often ruled that where a tenant voluntarily surrenders possession of the premises during an appeal taken from a judgment of possession for the landlord the case is moot and the appeal is dismissed, since there is no longer any controversy remaining between the parties. Dietz v. Miles Holding Corp., D.C.App., 277 A.2d 108 (1971); Johnson v. Habib, D.C.App., 255 A.2d 504 (1969); Gaddis v. Dixie Realty Co., D.C.App., 248 A.2d 820, remanded on other grounds, 136 U.S.App.D.C. 403, 420 F.2d 245 (1969); Price v. Wilson, D.C.Mun. App., 32 A.2d 109 (1943). We see no reason why this same rule of mootness should not apply to a case such as the one before us, where the tenant unequivocally surrenders possession to the landlord before trial, since the landlord has obtained that which he seeks and no controversy remains between the parties. See Haas v. Rathburn, 137 Ind.App. 172, 205 N.E.2d 329, 206 N.E. 2d 389 (1965); Case v. Rewerts, 15 Ill.App. 2d 1, 145 N.E.2d 251 (1957). We quoted with approval in Price v. Wilson, supra, what the Supreme Court stated a number of years ago that:

The duty of this court, as of every other judicial tribunal, is to decide actual controversies by a judgment which can be carried into effect, and not to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the matter in issue in the case before it. [Mills v. Green, 159 U.S. 651, 653, 16 S.Ct. 132, 40 L.Ed. 293 (1895).]

See also Cardoza v. Baird, 30 App.D.C. 86 (1907); Smith v. Worksman, D.C.Mun. App., 99 A.2d 712 (1953).

Appellee contends, citing our decision in Hohensee v. Manchester, D.C.Mun.App., 102 A.2d 461, cert. denied, 348 U.S. 864, 75 S.Ct. 89, 99 L.Ed. 681 (1954), that a justiciable issue remained at the trial in the instant cases because appellants themselves...