Section 45-1561

Citation: Section 45-1561
Parent Document: Habib v. Thurston, 517 A.2d 1 (1986)
Jurisdiction: DC (municipal)
Effective Date: 1986-10-30
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1995493/habib-v-thurston/ ↗

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As a consequence, all the tenant’s defenses and counterclaims premised on proof of housing code violations — commonly called Brown2 and Javins 3 defenses— dropped out pf the case. As we said over a decade ago, “a defense of housing code violations is irrelevant to a possessory action based upon a valid 30-day notice to quit (unless raised in the context of a claim of retaliatory eviction).” McNeal v. Habib, 346 A.2d 508, 514 (D.C.1975); accord Brown v. Young, 364 A.2d 1171, 1173 (D.C. 1976). The retaliatory eviction exception is irrelevant here. Because that defense is based only on a tenant’s complaints about code violations — proof of code violations themselves is not required, at 9 a retaliatory eviction cannot serve as the basis for a rent abatement.

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