Porter v. Hills

• Decision Date: 29 October 1946
• Docket Number: No. 5807.,5807.
• Citation: 75 F. Supp. 356
• Parties: PORTER v. HILLS.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Kansas

75 F. Supp. 356

PORTER v. HILLS.

No. 5807.

District Court, D. Kansas, First Division.

October 29, 1946.

Lawrence J. Wetzel, of Wichita, Kan., for plaintiff.

George D. Rathbun, of Manhattan, Kan., for defendant.

MELLOTT, District Judge.

This is an action to recover from the defendant the sum of $856, alleged to be three times the amount of overcharges made by him for housing accommodations in a Defense-Rental Area. It was tried to the court and at the conclusion of the evidence the parties were granted time within which to file briefs in support of their respective contentions as to the issue of law involved. There is now no controversy as to the facts, which are summarized in the following paragraphs of this opinion.

Defendant is the owner of rental property located in Manhattan, Kansas, consisting of six furnished apartments. Two of them are not included in the issues in this case. The four in issue are set out in column 1 of the schedule below. The apartments were not rented on April 1, 1941, nor on July 1, 1942, the pertinent dates contemplated by the applicable statute and the regulations promulgated by the administrator. (For a full discussion of the basic dates see Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S. 503, 64 S.Ct. 641, 88 L.Ed. 892.)

The apartments referred to in column 1 were registered within thirty days after they were first rented at the figures shown in column 2 of the schedule. Subsequent to the registration of the apartments by the landlord the rent was fixed by the then rent director, C. B. Dodge, Jr., at the amounts shown in column 3 of the schedule. On March 7, 1945, B. W. Diggle, successor to C. B. Dodge, Jr. and the then area rent director for the Manhattan Defense Rental Area, fixed the rent of the apartments at the amounts shown in column 4 of the schedule.

                    Col. 1          Col. 2        Col. 3          Col. 4   
                    Apartment    Amount Fixed   Amount Fixed    Amount fixed
                                  By Landlord     by Dodge        by Diggle,   
                                                Dec. 17, 1943   March 7, 1945
                    Basement         $55             $50           $37.50
                    1st Fl. East     $85             $65           $43.50
                    1st Fl. West     $80             $65           $43.50
                    2nd Fl. West     $75             $65           $43.50
                

The orders signed by Dodge, exclusive of caption, signature, etc., were prepared on OPA Form D-38, the one with reference to the first floor west apartment, reading as follows:

"Due notice having been given the landlord of the above-described accommodations, the Rent Director has considered the evidence in this matter and finds that the facts in this case require a reduction of the Maximum Rent on the grounds stated in Section (s) 5-C-1 of the Rent Regulation.

"Therefore on the basis of the rent which the Rent Director finds was generally prevailing in the Defense-Rental Area for comparable housing accommodations on the Maximum Rent Date, it is ordered that the Maximum Rent for the above-described accommodations be, and it hereby is, changed from $80.00 per month to $65.00 per month.

"Issued December 17th 1943 and effective beginning with the next regular rent payment period. No rent in excess of the Maximum Rent established by this order may be received or demanded. This order will remain in effect until changed by the Office of Price Administration."

Similar orders were made by Diggle on or about February 21, 1945, effective March 7, 1945, and, in addition thereto, he made orders on OPA Form D-11, the one with reference to the first floor west apartment, exclusive of caption and signatures, being as follows:

"Upon reinvestigation of the above matter in which an order was entered on December 13th, 1943 the Rent Director proposes to withdraw order issued December 13th, 1943 and substitute therefor a rental of $43.50 per Mo.

"In the event you wish to file a statement and supporting evidence with regard to the action proposed above, your statement and supporting evidence should be filed within 5 days from the date of this notice. Your statement and evidence submitted should be typed or legibly written and the docket number appearing on this notice should be placed on each document filed. If no statement or evidence is filed within the above period, the Rent Director may take the action proposed without further notice."

Similar orders, effective March 7, 1945, were made by Diggle with reference to the other apartments.

It has been stipulated by the parties that if the orders made by B. W. Diggle were valid, the defendant made overcharges substantially in the amount claimed in the complaint. If defendant had the right to charge and collect the amounts fixed by Dodge then there are no overcharges.

The essence of plaintiff's contention is stated by him upon brief in the following language: "By virtue of Section 204(d) of the Emergency Price Control Act 50 U.S. C.A.Appendix, § 924(d) this court has no jurisdiction to consider the validity of order. i. e. of Diggle's order effective March 7, 1945. Any question as to the validity of said order on any constitutional or statutory ground is withdrawn from the jurisdiction of this Court and committed to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Emergency Court of Appeals by Section 204(d) of the Act. Constitutionality of such a withdrawal of jurisdiction was upheld by the Supreme Court in Yakus v. United States, 321 U.S. 414, 64 S.Ct. 660, 88 L.Ed. 834; Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S. 503, 64 S. Ct. 641, 88 L.Ed. 892. It is important here to note that the considerations which moved the Court in the Yakus case apply just as fully to orders reducing rent as to those promulgated in broad general regulations."

The applicable regulation is 1388.-1181 (8 F.R. 14663), issued under 56 Stat. 23, 765, Public Law 383, 78th Congress, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 901 et seq. Inasmuch as the apartments had not been constructed prior to the "maximum rent date" (April 1, 1941) or prior to the "effective date of regulation" (July 1, 1942), the landlord filed the registration statement, required by Section 7, within 30 days after the property was first rented. The administrator therefore had the right, as provided in Section 3(e), to "order a decrease in the maximum rent as provided in Section 5(c)." The particular portion of Section 5(c) under which it must be assumed Dodge acted is subsection (1), which authorizes "a decrease of the maximum rent otherwise allowable" on the ground that the rent was "higher than the rent generally prevailing in the defense-rental area for comparable housing accommodations on the maximum rent date." Italics supplied. Thus it must be presumed that when Dodge made his orders of December 17, 1943, reducing the rents from the amounts shown in column 2 of the schedule to the amounts shown in column 3 he first made a finding as to the rent generally prevailing in the defense-rental area for comparable housing accommodations on the maximum rent date and adjusted the rent of each apartment to an amount coinciding with the rent of such facilities in that area on the maximum rent date. Neither party is assailing Dodge's determination and, without pausing to discuss the matter at length, this court is of the opinion that it is lacking in power or jurisdiction to modify that order or to pass upon its validity. Cf. Yakus v. United States, 321 U.S. 414, ...