Quick v. District of Columbia

71 A.2d 771, 1950 D.C. App. LEXIS 119

Opinions

CLAGETT, Associate Judge.

The District of Columbia through its corporation counsel filed a motion for rehearing in the above entitled case involving a sentence imposed by the Municipal Court under section 10(b) of the District of Columbia Rent Act¹ after Congress had stricken out subsection (b) of section 10. All the necessary facts are contained in our previous opinion.² The decision of the court approved by Judge Hood and myself reversed the lower court, Chief Judge Cayton writing a separate dissenting opinion.

I still agree with everything that was said in the previous majority opinion except the effect of the general saving clause contained in 1 U.S.C.A. § 109, quoted in full in our previous opinion, which provides in effect that the repeal of any statute shall not have the effect to release or extinguish any penalty unless the repealing act shall so expressly provide. I base my present position on such decisions of the Supreme Court as Ex parte Lamar, 2 Cir., 274 F. 160, affirmed without opinion 260 U.S. 711, 43 S.Ct. 251, 67 L.Ed. 476, and Great Northern Railway Company v. United States, 208 U.S. 452, 28 S.Ct. 313, 316, 52 L.Ed. 567.

Without reviewing the matter in detail, I have concluded that the previous decision of this court must be overruled, and the judgment of the Municipal Court affirmed.

I am authorized by Chief Judge Cayton to say that he adheres to the.views ex-, pressed in his dissenting opinion, and that, he thinks affirmance should be predicated on the saving clause in the local rent act itself,, .which specifically covers, this situation, rather than on the general provisions of a federal statute, 1 U.S.C.A. § 109.

.Judgment Affirmed.

1 . Code 1940, Snpp. VI, § 45-1610 (b).

2 . 69 A.2d 511.