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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The answer has to be no, for three reasons. First, on the assumption that a protective order in a notice case was appropriately entered, there is no basis for assuming that a tenant who has asserted code violations during the litigation period would tender, upon release, the full sum to the landlord; a controversy would immediately ensue. McNeal itself rejected the suggestion in Bell, 139 U.S.App.D.C. at 112, 430 F.2d at 485, that, when a notice case is mooted by the tenant's vacation of the premises, the money in the registry should be returned to the tenant "unless the landlord promptly goes to court to seek a money judgment for rent actually due" during the litigation period (and the protective order is accordingly extended). McNeal reasoned that, because "[t]he parties and the money are before the court[,] it would be pointless to call for instituting a new proceeding as a means of concluding the existing one." 346 A.2d at 515 n. 15. Although the equities in McNeal, where the tenant mooted the case, more clearly favored the landlord than the equities do here, where the landlord lost his claim for possession, the fact remains that the tenant in this case has announced a code violation defense for the litigation period. This makes it imperative, as in McNeal, that a known controversy over which the court already has jurisdiction should not be ignored by an act of disbursement which itself is likely to generate another law suit.[22] It would no more be fair to permit release of the funds to the tenant than to the landlord without a final adjudication.

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