Dean v. Woods

• Decision Date: 13 September 1948
• Docket Number: No. 468.,468.
• Citation: 169 F.2d 952
• Parties: DEAN et al. v. WOODS, Housing Expediter.
• Court: U.S. Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

169 F.2d 952 (1948)

DEAN et al. v. WOODS, Housing Expediter.

No. 468.

United States Emergency Court of Appeals.

Heard June 17, 1948.

Decided September 13, 1948.

Rehearing Denied October 14, 1948.

Jewell D. Lemons, of San Antonio, Tex. (Palmer & Lemons, of San Antonio, Tex., on the brief), for complainants.

Lloyd Weisberger, Atty., Office of Housing Expediter, of Washington, D. C. (Ed Dupree, Gen. Counsel, Robert A. Sauer, Asst. Gen. Counsel, Charles P. Liff, Chief, Appeals Section, and Henry K. Osterman, Atty., all of Office of Housing Expediter, all of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for respondent.

Before MARIS, Chief Judge, and MCALLISTER and LINDLEY, Judges.

Heard at San Antonio June 17, 1948.

MARIS, Chief Judge.

The complainants seek a judgment setting aside four orders of the Area Rent Director of the San Antonio Defense-Rental Area entered February 5, 1947, reducing retroactively to November 2, 1945, the maximum rents of the four apartments at 12 Riverside Drive, San Antonio. The building in which these apartments are located was built in 1945 following a fire which had completely destroyed an apartment building previously located on the same site. The four apartments were first rented on November 2, 1945, and under Secs. 4(e) and 5(c) (1) of the Rent Regulation for Housing the first rents became the maximum rents subject to reduction by the Area Rent Director to the level of rents generally prevailing on the maximum rent date¹ in the defense-rental area for comparable accommodations plus an allowance for increased cost of construction since that date. The Area Rent Director's orders here under review were entered under the authority of these sections. The orders were protested by the complainants and, after consideration by a board of review which made findings and recommended denial of the protest, the respondent entered an order denying the protest. The complainants having failed to refund to their tenants the excess rents collected between November 2, 1945 and February 5, 1947, enforcement suits were brought and are presently pending against some of them. This court accordingly has jurisdiction of the complaint. 150 East 47th Street Corporation v. Porter, Em.App.1946, 156 F.2d 541.

The complainants' principal contention is that the Area Rent Director initially and the Housing Expediter upon consideration of the protest arbitrarily and without adequate evidence reduced the complainants' rents below the level of comparability. The argument was forcefully presented by their able counsel. But, however much we might be inclined to sympathize with the point of view thus expressed were we free to act as fact-finders ourselves, we are bound under the law to accept the findings of the Housing Expediter in the protest proceeding if they are supported by substantial evidence. The findings of the Area Rent Director we need not consider since the validity of the orders under review now depends upon those made by the Housing Expediter after his de novo consideration of the evidence in the protest proceeding. Victor v. Porter, Em.App.1946, 157 F.2d 769, certiorari denied Victor v. Fleming, 329 U.S. 801, 67 S. Ct. 491, 91 L.Ed. 685.

When we examine the entire evidence which was before the Housing Expediter and his board of review in the protest proceeding we are unable to say that it does not include substantial evidence which supports their findings. True the evidence is sharply conflicting. But the evidence of Chief Rent Examiner Lacey with respect to the apartments in question and the five apartments which he asserted to be comparable was sufficient, if credited as it was by the board of review and the Housing Expediter, to support their findings that the rents as reduced by the Area Rent Director's orders were proper under the regulation. The complainants vigorously attack Lacey's alleged comparable properties. They assert that ...