Block v. Hirsh

• Citation: 256 U.S. 135,65 L.Ed. 865,16 A. L. R. 165,41 S.Ct. 458
• Decision Date: 18 April 1921
• Docket Number: No. 640,640
• Parties: BLOCK v. HIRSH
• Court: United States Supreme Court

256 U.S. 135

41 S.Ct. 458

65 L.Ed. 865

BLOCK

v HIRSH.

No. 640.

Argued March 3, 1921.

Decided April 18, 1921.

[Syllabus from pages 135-136 intentionally omitted] Mr. Jesse C. Adkinds, of Washington, D. C., for plaintiff in error.

Mr. William G. Johnson, of Washington, D. C., for defendant in error.

Mr. Henry H. Glassie, of Washington, D. C., for the United States, amicus curia.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 137-153 intentionally omitted]

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Mr. Justice HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a proceeding brought by the defendant in error, Hirsh, to recover possession of the cellar and first floor of a building on F street in Washington which the plaintiff in error, Block, holds over after the expiration of a lease to him. Hirsh bought the building while the lease was running, and on December 15, 1919, notified Block that he should require possession on December 31 when the lease expired. Block declined to surrender the premises, relying upon the Act of October 22, 1919, c. 80, Title 2—'District of Columbia Rents'; especially § 109; 41 Stat. 297, 298, 301. That is also the ground of his defence in this Court, and the question is whether the statute is constitutional, or, as held by the Court of Appeals, and attempt to authorize the taking of property not for public use and without due process of law, and for this and other reasons void.

By § 109 of the act the right of a tenant to occupy any hotel (apartment, or 'rental property,' i. e., any building

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or part thereof, other than hotel or apartment, (§101,) is to continue notwithstanding the expiration of his term, at the option of the tenant, subject to regulation by the Commission appointed by the act, so long as he pays the rent and performs the conditions as fixed by the lease or as modified by the Commission. It is provided in the same section that the owner shall have the right to possession 'for actual and bona fide occupancy by himself, or his wife, children or dependents * * * upon giving thirty days' notice in writing.' According to his affidavit Hirsh wanted the premises for his own use, but he did not see fit to give the thirty days' notice because he denied the validity of the act. The statute embodies a scheme or code which it is needless to set forth, but it should be stated that it ends with the declaration in section 122 that the provisions of Title 2 are made necessary by emergencies growing out of the war, resulting in rental conditions in the District dangerous to the public health and burdensome to public officers, employees and accessories, and thereby embarassing the Federal Government in the transaction of the public business. As emergency legislation the Title is to end in two years unless sooner repealed.

No doubt it is true that a legislative declaration of facts that are material only as the ground for enacting a rule of law, for instance, that a certain use is a public one, may not be held conclusive by the Courts. Shoemaker v. United States, 147 U. S. 282, 298, 13 Sup. Ct. 361, 37 L. Ed. 170; Hairston v. Danville & Western Ry. Co., 208 U. S. 598, 606, 28 Sup. Ct. 331, 52 L. Ed. 637, 13 Ann. Cas. 1008; Prentiss v. Atlantic Coast Line Co., 211 U. S. 210, 227, 29 Sup. Ct. 67, 53 L. Ed. 150; Producers Transportation Co. v. Railroad Commission, 251 U. S. 228, 230, 40 Sup. Ct. 131, 64 L. Ed. 239. But a declaration by a legislature concerning public conditions that by necessity and duty it must know, is entitled at least to great respect. In this instance Congress stated a publicly notorious and almost world-wide fact. That the emergency declared by the statute did exist

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must be assumed, and the question is whether Congress was incompetent to meet it in the way in which it has been met by most of the civilized countries of the world.

The general proposition to be maintained is that circumstances have clothed the letting of buildings in the District of Columbia with a public interest so great as to justify regulation by law. Plainly circumstances may so change in time or so differ in space as to clothe with such an interest what at other times or in other places would be a matter of purely private concern. It is enough to refer to the decisions as to insurance, in German Alliance Insurance Co. v. Lewis, 233 U. S. 389, 34 Sup. Ct. 612, 58 L. Ed. 1011, L. R. A. 1915C, 1189; irrigation, in Clark v. Nash, 198 U. S. 361, 25 Sup. Ct. 676, 49 L. Ed. 1085, 4 Ann. Cas. 1171; and mining, in Strickley v. Highland Boy Gold Mining Co., 200 U. S. 527, 26 Sup. Ct. 301, 50 L. Ed. 581, 4 Ann. Cas. 1174. They sufficiently illustrate what hardly would be denied. They illustrate also that the use by the public generally of each specific thing affected cannot be made the test of public interest, Mt. Vernon-Woodberry Cotton Duck Co. v. Alabama Interstate Power Co., 240 U. S. 30, 32, 36 Sup. Ct. 234, 60 L. Ed. 507, and that the public interest may extend to the use of land. They dispel the notion that what in its immediate aspect may be only a private transaction may not be raised by its class or charter to a public affair. See, also, Noble State Bank v. Haskell, 219 U. S. 104, 110, 111, 31 Sup. Ct. 186, 55 L. Ed. 112, 32 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1062, Ann. Cas. 1912A, 487.

The fact that tangible property is also visible tends to give rigidity to our conception of our rights in it that we do not attach to others less concretely clothed. But the notion that the former are exempt from the legislative modification required from time to time in civilized life is contradicted not only by the doctrine of eminent domain, under which what is taken is paid for, but by that of the police power in its proper sense, under which property rights may be cut down, and to that extent taken, without pay. Under the police power the right to erect buildings in a certain quarter of a city may be limited to from eighty to one hundred feet. Welch v.

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Swasey, 214 U. S. 91, 29 Sup. Ct. 567, 53 L. Ed. 923. Safe pillars may be required in coal mines. Plymouth Coal Co. v. Pennsylvania, 232 U. S. 531, 34 Sup. Ct. 359, 58 L. Ed. 713. Billboards in cities may be regulated. St. Louis Poster Advertising Co. v. St. Louis, 249 U. S. 269, 39 Sup. Ct. 274, 63 L. Ed. 599. Watersheds in the country may be kept clear. Perley v. North Carolina, 249 U. S. 511, 39 Sup. Ct. 357, 63 L. Ed. 735. These cases are enough to establish that a public exigency will justify the legislature in restricting property rights in land to a certain extent without compensation. But if to answer one need the legislature may limit height to answer another it may limit rent. We do not perceive any reason for denying the justification held good in the foregoing cases to a law limiting the property rights now in question if the public exigency requires that. The reasons are of a different nature but they certainly are not less pressing. Congress has stated the unquestionable embarrassment of Government and danger to the public health in the existing condition of things. The space in Washington is necessarily monopolized in comparatively few hands, and letting portions of it is as much a business as any other. Housing is a necessary of life. All the elements of a public interest justifying some degree of public control are present. The only matter that seems to us open to debate is whether the statute goes too far. For just as there comes a point at which the police power ceases and leaves only that of eminent domain, it may be conceded that regulations of the present sort pressed to a certain height might amount to a taking without due process of law. Martin v. District of Columbia, 205 U. S. 135, 139, 27 Sup. Ct. 440, 51 L. Ed. 743.

Perhaps it would be too strict to deal with this case as concerning only the requirement of thirty days' notice. For although the plaintiff alleged that he wanted the premises for his own use the defendant denied it and might have prevailed upon that issue under the act. The general question to which we have adverted must be decided, if not in this then in the next case, and it should

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be disposed of now. The main point against the law is that tenants are allowed to remain in possession at the same rent that they have been paying, unless modified by the Commission established by the act, and that thus the use of the land and the right of the owner to do what he will with his own and to make what contracts he pleases are cut down. But if the public interest be established the regulation of rates is one of the first forms in which it is asserted, and the validity of such regulation has been settled since Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113. It is said that a grain elevator may go out of business whereas here the use is fastened upon the land. The power to go out of business, when it exists, is an illusory answer to gas companies and waterworks, but we need not stop at that. The regulation is put and justified only as a temporary measure. See Wilson v. New, 243 U. S. 332, 345, 346, 37 Sup. Ct. 298, 61 L. Ed. 755, L. R. A. 1917E, 938, Ann. Cas. 1918A, 1024; Fort Smith & Western R. R. Co. v. Mills, 253 U. S. 206, 40 Sup. Ct. 526, 64 L. Ed. 862. A limit in time, to tide over a passing trouble, well may justify a law that could not be upheld as a permanent change.

Machinery is provided to secure to the landlord a reasonable rent. Section 106. It may be assumed that the interpretation of 'reasonable' will deprive him in part at least of the power of profiting by the sudden influx of people of Washington caused by the needs of Government and the war, and thus of a right usually incident to fortunately situated property—of a part of the value of his property as defined in International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, 234 U. S. 222, 34 Sup. Ct. 853, 58 L. Ed. 1284; Southern Ry. Co. v. Greene, 216 U. S. 400, 414, 30 Sup. Ct. 287, 54 L. Ed. 536, 17 Ann. Cas. 1247. But while it is unjust to pursue such profits from a national misfortune with sweeping...