Rieser v. District of Columbia

• Decision Date: 04 May 1978
• Docket Number: Nos. 76-1411,76-1412,s. 76-1411
• Citation: 580 F.2d 647,188 U.S.App.D.C. 384
• Parties: Raymond G. RIESER, Administrator for the Estate and Personal Representative of Rebecca A. Rieser, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Appellant, and Timothy Abron. Raymond G. RIESER, Administrator for the Estate and Personal Representative of Rebecca A. Rieser, Appellant, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 647

580 F.2d 647

188 U.S.App.D.C. 384

Raymond G. RIESER, Administrator for the Estate and Personal Representative of Rebecca A. Rieser, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Appellant, and Timothy Abron.

Raymond G. RIESER, Administrator for the Estate and Personal Representative of Rebecca A. Rieser, Appellant, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA et al.

Nos. 76-1411, 76-1412.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued En Banc Jan. 6, 1978.

Decided May 4, 1978.

David P. Sutton, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Washington, D. C., with whom John R. Risher, Jr., Corp. Counsel, Richard W. Barton, Deputy Corp. Counsel, and Robert L. Chernikoff, Asst. Corp. Counsel, Washington, D. C., were on the brief for District of Columbia, appellant in No. 76-1411 and appellee in No. 76-1412.

Also Louis P. Robbins, Principal Asst. Corp. Counsel, Washington, D. C., entered an appearance for District of Columbia, appellant in No. 76-1411 and appellee in No. 76-1412.

Jerry L. Shulman, Washington, D. C., with whom Brendan V. Sullivan, Jr., Washington, D. C., was on the brief for Rieser, appellee in No. 76-1411 and appellant in No. 76-1412.

Before WRIGHT, Chief Judge, and BAZELON, McGOWAN, TAMM, LEVENTHAL, ROBINSON, MacKINNON, ROBB and WILKEY, Circuit Judges.

JUDGMENT

This cause came on to be heard by the court on the record on appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, and briefs were filed herein by the parties and the cause was argued by counsel before the court sitting En banc.

On consideration of the foregoing, it is ORDERED and ADJUDGED by this court En banc that the opinion filed by the division of this court on August 15, 1977 which was vacated in accordance with the practices of this court when rehearing En banc was granted by order of November 7, 1977, is hereby reinstated except that same is modified and amended as follows: Part III, entitled "Jurisdiction," is stricken from said division opinion and the opinion of Judge McGowan which follows is inserted in lieu thereof.

Opinion for the Court filed by McGOWAN, Circuit Judge.

Concurring opinion filed by MacKINNON, Circuit Judge.

McGOWAN, Circuit Judge:

This appeal from the District Court involves a judgment in tort against the District of Columbia. After the judgment was affirmed by a panel of this court, we granted appellant's suggestion for rehearing En banc, asking the parties to address themselves particularly to the question of the District Court's subject matter jurisdiction. At the same time, we vacated the panel's opinion, Rieser v. District of Columbia, 183 U.S.App.D.C. 375, 563 F.2d 462, Vacated en banc, 183 U.S.App.D.C. 405, 563 F.2d 482 (1977), which, by basing the District Court's power to decide the case on a theory of federal "pendent party" jurisdiction, had narrowed the District Court's dual predication of its jurisdiction on a federal "pendent party" theory And on federal diversity jurisdiction under section 1332 of the Judicial Code, 28 U.S.C. § 1332 (1970). Upon consideration of an argument pressed independently in this court for the first time En banc, we are convinced that the District Court had general jurisdiction over these local law claims pursuant to a provision of limited duration in the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act, Pub.L. 91-358, § 111, 84 Stat. 473 (1970), Codified in D.C.Code § 11-501(4) (1973).

In these circumstances we do not find it necessary to resolve En banc either the merits of the local law issues or the existence Vel non of federal jurisdiction. Consequently, we reinstate the panel opinion except for Part III, entitled "Jurisdiction," 183 U.S.App.D.C. at 382-387, 563 F.2d at 469-74, leaving the jurisdictional basis of the judgment appealed from as stated hereinafter.

I

Two sets of circumstances account for the multiple jurisdictional theories advanced in this case. First, plaintiff-appellee's search for actionable parties liable for the death of his daughter at the hands of a paroled criminal offender led him in 1973 to attempt to bring into the federal courts of the District of Columbia the site of the tragedy a large number of defendants, including the parolee himself, the firm employing him, the D.C. parole officer with responsibility over him, as well as that officer's employer, the government of the District of Columbia. Second, those efforts were proceeding at a time when the United States District Court for the District of Columbia was in flux, moving from possession of dual local and federal responsibility, See O'Donoghue v. United States, 289 U.S. 516, 545-46, 53 S.Ct. 740, 77 L.Ed. 1356 (1933), to basically the same status as the United States district courts in the fifty states, See Palmore v. United States, 411 U.S. 389, 93 S.Ct. 1670, 36 L.Ed.2d 342 (1973).

A.

On July 29, 1970, Congress enacted the District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedure Act, Pub.L. 91-358 ("The Reorganization Act") (hereinafter cited to relevant sections of the D.C.Code), which, in relevant part, began a progressive modification of the court system of the District of Columbia. That system, since 1801, See Act of February 27, 1801, 2 Stat. 103, See also Act of March 3, 1863, c. 91, 12 Stat. 762, had provided the only forum in the District for litigating almost all civil and criminal cases, whether premised on local or federal law. By 1970, however, the City of Washington, D. C. had grown into one of the major metropolitan centers in the United States, and its citizens were making tremendous demands on the unitary system of courts then consisting of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, as well as some purely local courts of quite limited jurisdiction. See note 1 Infra. At the same time, people having business in the national Capital at Washington, D. C. were also increasingly reliant on those courts for the determination of many important federal issues. Congress resolved "to relieve (the United States' courts) from the smothering responsibility for the great mass of litigation, civil and criminal, that inevitably characterizes the court system in a major city," by shifting such cases to "an entirely new court system with functions essentially similar to those of the local courts found in the 50 States . . . ." Palmore v. United States, supra, 411 U.S. at 408-09, 93 S.Ct. at 1682, Citing S.Rep.No.405, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 1-3, 5, 18 (1970); H.R.Rep.No.907, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 23-24, 33 (1970).

In effecting this drastic rearrangement of jurisdiction, Congress did not immediately place the entire range of local matters on the shoulders of the newly organized local court system. ¹ Instead, the transition was accomplished gradually, by leaving all cases filed within six months of enactment to be tried in the United States District Court and, thereafter, allowing the filing of certain enumerated types of local cases in those courts during eighteen- and thirty-month transitional periods, the last of which ended on July 31, 1973. D.C.Code § 11-501 (1973). See id. § 11-921(b) (withholding such cases from the jurisdiction of local courts during the relevant periods). See generally S.Rep., Supra at 5-6. In devising this three-stage process, Congress took seriously Judge Harold Greene's warning that "(a) court is not a commodity that can be produced, full blown, like an electric appliance, (but) must grow in an orderly progression, by measured, natural sta(g)es." Id. at 5.

Among Congress' concerns in adopting a staged transition were the accurate prediction of the total number of judges necessary to staff the District of Columbia Superior Court and Court of Appeals once fully constituted, and the construction of facilities capable of housing them, as well as the appointment of highly qualified persons to those positions, and the expeditious establishment of an efficient local judicial system capable of rendering "swift and sure" justice in criminal cases. Id. at 5-17; Senate Comm. on the District of Columbia, Statement of the Managers on the Part of the Senate Submitted Regarding the Conference Action Upon S. 2601, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 5 (1970) (hereinafter referred to as Conference Statement ). It is not surprising, therefore, that, besides probate, See D.C.Code § 11-501(3) (1973), the largest category of cases that were withheld from the new local courts until the final stage of reorganization was "civil action(s, with certain minor exceptions,) begun in the court during the thirty-month period beginning on such effective date wherein the amount in controversy exceeds $50,000." D.C.Code § 11-501(4) (1973). ² Of all cases likely to confront a local judge, of course, those described in the just-quoted language are most likely both to require extraordinary amounts of the very judicial resources that Congress worried about providing immediately upon enactment and to interfere with the local judiciary's criminal justice responsibilities. As to such cases, in fact, Congress' concerns reached even beyond the thirty-month transition period. Thus, the lawmakers attempted roughly to predict how the cases filed in the local courts in the early months of existence would mature, and to increase judicial resources accordingly. See S.Rep., Supra at 7. And, apparently to protect those predictions, Congress, even after the thirty-month period had run, prohibited transfer to the new courts of local cases begun in the federal courts if they would "justify a judgment in excess of $50,000." D.C.Code § 11-922(b) (1973).

In sum, Congress, in the self-conscious exercise of its "plenary" power to legislate for the District of Columbia under Article I, § 8, cl. 17 of the Constitution, See Palmore v. United States, supra at 397, 93 S.Ct. 1670, S.Rep., Supra at 17-18, conceived of the Reorganization Act as a means of creating a comprehensive, efficient and high-quality local judicial system...