United States v. Wittek

• Decision Date: 13 June 1949
• Docket Number: No. 473,473
• Citation: 69 S.Ct. 1108,337 U.S. 346,93 L.Ed. 1406
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. WITTEK
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

337 U.S. 346

69 S.Ct. 1108

93 L.Ed. 1406

UNITED STATES

v WITTEK.

No. 473.

Argued April 20, 21, 1949.

Decided June 13, 1949.

Asst. Attorney General A. Devitt Vanech for petitioner.

Mr. Ward B. McCarthy, Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BURTON delivered the opinion of the Court.

The question presented is whether the United States, as the owner of Bellevue Houses, a defense-housing project in the District of Columbia, is a 'landlord' within the meaning of the District of Columbia Emergency Rent Act,¹ with particular reference to rights of occupancy and rates of rental. For the reasons to be stated, we hold that it is not.

The United States of America, petitioner herein, filed its amended complaint in the Municipal Court for the District of Columbia against Wittek, the respondent, seeking possession of the premises occupied by him in the defense-housing project in the District of Columbia known as Bellevue Houses. The complaint alleged that the premises were owned by the United States and that the housing accommodations had been constructed by the Navy Department under authority of § 201 of the Second Supplemental National Defense Appropriation Act, 1941.² This summary proceeding was brought under § 20, 31 Stat. 1193, 41 Stat. 555, D.C.Code 1940, § 11—735. The respondent's tenancy had been terminated by notice to quit, served by § 1219, 31 Stat. 1382, D.C.Code 1940, § by § 1219, 3u Stat. 1382, D.C.Code 1940, § 45—902, and the United States claimed that he no longer had any right to possession.³ The respondent's defense, now be- fore us, is that the United States did not establish any of the additional facts which the District of Columbia Emergency Rent Act required a landlord to establish as a condition of such landlord's recovery of possession of housing accommodations to which the Act applied.⁴ The parties agreed that the cause be disposed of by the Municipal Court upon the pleadings, pretrial stipulations and certain exhibits. That court found that it had jurisdiction, that the Emergency Rent Act did not apply to the United States as the landlord of the premises in question and it ordered possession of the premises to be given to the United States. The Municipal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia affirmed the judgment.⁵ The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit allowed an appeal, limited to two questions.⁶ It disposed of one by sustaining the juris- diction of the Municipal Court. It answered the other by holding that the District of Columbia Emergency Rent Act did apply to he United States as the landlord in this proceeding. It ordered the judgment reversed and the cause remanded to the Municipal Court of Appeals. 83 U.S.App.D.C. 377, 171 F.2d 8. We granted certiorari because of the substantial importance of the decision to the administration of Government-owned, low-rent housing, as well as to Government-owned, defense housing, in the District of Columbia. 336 U.S. 931, 69 S.Ct. 737.

When the circumstances are appreciated, it is practically inconceivable that Congress would have subjected its Government-owned, low-rent housing program in the District of Columbia to the additional control prescribed by the District of Columbia Emergency Rent Act. Yet the interpretation by which the court below held that Act applicable to the United States as a landlord of defense housing might make the Act equally applicable to the United States as a landlord of all other housing accommodations including its low-rent housing. The District of Columbia Emergency Rent Act came before Congress, late in 1941, through and with the support of the Congressional Committees on the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives and the Senate. It was designed as a model, prewar, temporary, emergency measure to forestall the skyrocketing of rentals of housing accommodations for defense workers then concentrating in the District of Columbia. Obviously, it was directed, at least primarily, at private landlords.⁷ It sought to stabilize housing rentals at about the level of January 1, 1941, which it selected as 'a level fixed (so far as practicable) by free competition; * * *'⁸ Congress traditionally has relied heavily upon its Committees on the District of Columbia in District matters. Through them it must have seen this measure in the light of its own long-term, low-rent housing program for the District. In appraising the attitude of these Committees and of Congress toward Government-owned, low-rent housing as a substitute for substandard housing in the District, it is impossible to overemphasize either the seriousness of the need or the long-standing concern of Congress about that need. The substandard housing in the District has been a frequent subject of congressional debate, study and legislation since the Civil War. The narrow alleys in the interior of 200 or more of the large downtown city blocks of the District, although unfitted for habitation, have been notoriously congested with a large population for which adequate housing never has existed. This condition has been widely publicized and only partial success has been attained through the efforts to improve it. Out of this need there has evolved a long-term congressional program to eliminate these substandard dwellings. Due to an obvious lack of suitable private housing, this program has led to the construction of a number of Government-built, owned and operated low-rent housing accommodations. In 1934, Congress enacted the District of Columbia Alley Dwelling ct, 48 Stat. 930, D.C.Code 1940, § 5—103 et seq. It authorized the President to acquire land adjacent to the inhabited alleys in the District, erect buildings thereon and rent them 'upon such terms and conditions as he may determine: * * *.'⁹ Pursuant to this Act, he designated the Chairman (officially entitled the President) of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia, the Executive Officer (later the Director) of the National Capital Park and Planning Commission and the Director of Housing of the Federal Emergency Administration of Public Works to carry out its purposes. He named the group The Alley Dwelling Authority.¹⁰ In 1938, he substituted the Architect of the Capitol for the third official constituting the Authority,¹¹ and, in 1943, he changed its name to that of the National Capital Housing Authority.¹² It is this presidentially designated Authority that has operated, for the United States, all of its low-rent housing projects in the District. It is this Authority that has fixed the rentals and passed upon the respective rights of tenants to occupy premises in those projects. Its composition, including two United States officials and the President of the Board of Commissioners of the District, demonstrates the incongruity of an attempt, such as is here suggested, to subject it to the control of the District's Administrator of Rent Control, himself appointed by the Board of Commissioners of the District. The recognized responsibility of this Authority as a federal housing agency further appears from the fact that, in due course, it was chosen by the Government to be the operating lessee of more than 5,000 Government-owned, defense-housing, dwelling units, which were built by the United States in or near the District, including the Bellevue Houses.

The issue before us does not turn upon what particular agency is operating the Bellevue Houses or the other Government-owned housing of the United States. The issue is whether the United States, through whatever agency it operates, is to be controlled in its rental policies by the District Administrator of Rent Control. In determining the meaning of the District of Columbia Emergency Rent Act, approved December 2, 1941, which created the District Administrator of Rent Control, it therefore is material to note that the United St tes, in 1941, already was acting as a landlord of much Government-owned housing in the District and that, in each instance, it had placed those operations in the control of a national or presidentially designated authority or official with authorization fitted to the particular and varied purposes of that housing. This fact is of crucial significance in connection with the low-rent housing in the District which had been in operation for several years. Its distinctly social welfare and relief purposes already were in the hands of The Alley Dwelling Authority.

Beginning in 1934, The Alley Dwelling Authority built and put into operation five Government-owned, low-rent housing projects (including 112 dwelling units) and three commercial properties.¹³ In 1938, Title II was added to the District of Columbia Alley Dwelling Act, 52 Stat. 1188, D.C.Code 1940, § 5—112 et seq., and the Authority was designated also as a public housing agency to carry out the purposes of the United States Housing Act of 1937, 50 Stat. 888 et seq. See 42 U.S.C. (1940 ed.) § 1401 et seq, 42 U.S.C.A. § 1401 et seq. This enabled it to secure loans to build low-rent, housing accommodations and its program promptly expanded. By the end of 1941 it had com- pleted, under Title II, six more low-rent projects, including 1,613 dwelling units, and the Government's brief in the instant case states that it is now managing, under that Title, 3,147 such dwellings. The character of these dwellings is plain from the definition of 'low-rent housing' in the Housing Act.¹⁴ This was prewar, poor-relief, low-rent housing, rather than defense housing. These projects were subsidized. The rentals were keyed to the inadequacy of the income of the respective tenants. The rentals did not purport to equal the level of those fixed by free competition for comparable privately owned housing. It was an important feature of the operating policy of these projects that a tenant be dispossessed, or 'graduated' as the Authority termed it, whenever that tenant's financial needs no longer entitled him to the subsidized privileges....