Willson v. McDonnell

• Decision Date: 01 December 1919
• Docket Number: 3248.
• Citation: 265 F. 432
• Parties: WILLSON v. McDONNELL.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

265 F. 432

WILLSON v. McDONNELL.

No. 3248.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia.

December 1, 1919

Submitted October 13, 1919.

On Motion for Reargument, December 24, 1919.

Appeal from the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.

Henry E. Davis, of Washington, D.C., for appellant.

Leon Tobriner and Byron U. Graham, both of Washington, D.C., for appellee.

ROBB Associate Justice.

Appeal from a judgment in the Supreme Court of the District for the plaintiff, appellee here, under law rule 19 of that court, in a landlord and tenant proceeding instituted in the municipal court.

According to the averments of the declaration, plaintiff was a bona fide purchaser of the premises in question, necessarily required them for his own occupancy, and had given legal notice to the tenant to that effect. The defendant, in her affidavit of defense, denied that plaintiff necessarily required the premises for his own occupancy, and demanded a jury trial.

Appellee contends that the 'joint resolution to prevent rent profiteering in the District of Columbia,' commonly known as the Saulsbury Resolution (40 Stat. 593), and invoked by the appellant, is unconstitutional, and hence that it is immaterial whether or not he necessarily required the premises for his own occupancy. In the preamble to the resolution it is declared--

'essential to the national security and defense, and for the successful prosecution of the war, to establish governmental control and assure adequate regulation of real estate in the District of Columbia.'

It is provided in the resolution that until a treaty of peace shall have been definitely concluded between the United States and Germany--

'no judicial order, decree, or judgment for the recovery of possession of any real estate in the District of Columbia now or hereafter held or acquired by oral or written agreement of lease for one month or any longer period, or for the ejectment or dispossession of a tenant therefrom, shall be made,' and that 'all leases thereof shall continue so long as the tenant continues to pay rent at the agreed rate and performs the other conditions of the tenancy which are not inconsistent herewith, unless the tenant has committed waste, or has been guilty on the premises of conduct which constitutes a nuisance or a breach of the peace, or other misdemeanor or crime, or that the premises are necessarily required by a landlord or bona fide purchaser for occupation, either by himself or his wife, children, or dependents while he is in the employ of or officially connected with any branch of the government, or where the property has been sold to a bona fide purchaser for his own occupancy.'

The resolution further provides that where an order, decree, or judgment has been made, but not executed, before the passage of the resolution, and the court is of opinion that it would not have been made had the resolution been in force, it shall be rescinded or modified 'in such manner as the court may deem proper for the purpose of giving effect' to the resolution. The resolution also provides that--

'all remedies, at law or in equity, of the lessor based on any provision in any oral or written agreement of lease that the same shall be determined or forfeited if the premises shall be sold are hereby suspended while this resolution shall be in force, and every purchaser shall take the conveyance of any premises subject to the rights of all tenants in possession thereof under the provisions of this resolution that the term 'real estate' as herein used shall be construed to include any and all land, any building, any part of any building, house, or dwelling, any apartment, room suite of rooms and every other improvement or structure whatsoever on land situated and being in the District of Columbia.'

It hardly will be denied that under the Maryland Act of Cession (Acts 1791, c. 45, Sec. 2), and subsequent proceedings thereunder, the title to real estate within the territory ceded became and is as absolute as the title to real estate in Maryland or any other state of the Union. Bursey v. Lyon, 30 App.D.C. 597. The enjoyment of that estate is subject, of course, to reasonable regulation, and, under the right of eminent domain, an attribute of sovereignty, the property may be taken for public use upon just compensation. Shoemaker v. United States, 147 U.S. 282, 13 Sup.Ct. 361, 37 L.Ed. 170; C. & O. Canal Co. v. Union Bank, 4 Cranch, C.C. 75, 80, Fed. Cas. No. 2,653. In the latter case, cited with approval in the former, in speaking of the contention that the United States under the Act of Cession was without authority to take private property for public use, the court said:

'We think it is sufficient answer to this objection, to say that the United States do not, by this inquisition, or by the charter to the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company, claim any right of property in the soil. They only claim to exercise the power which belongs to every sovereign to appropriate, upon just compensation, private property, to the making of a highway, wherever the public good requires it.'

It will be well, before proceeding to an analysis of the resolution before us, to determine to what extent the people of this District are protected by the Constitution of the United States. The assertion has been made that, Congress having power 'to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever' in the District (Constitution, art. 1, Sec 8, par. 17), the provisions of the Constitution, which protect persons and property in all other places under the jurisdiction of the United States, are without particular force here. To this we cannot accede. It would be an anomalous situation, indeed,...