Benson Hotel Corporation v. Woods, 13704.

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)
• Writing for the Court: GARDNER, WOODROUGH and COLLET, Circuit
• Citation: 168 F.2d 694
• Parties: BENSON HOTEL CORPORATION v. WOODS.
• Docket Number: No. 13704.,13704.
• Decision Date: 11 June 1948

168 F.2d 694 (1948)

BENSON HOTEL CORPORATION
v.
WOODS.

No. 13704.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

June 11, 1948.

168 F.2d 695

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.

GARDNER, Circuit Judge.

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

168 F.2d 696

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...