Carl v. Children's Hospital, 702 A.2d 159 (1997)

Citation: Carl v. Children's Hospital, 702 A.2d 159 (1997)
Parent Document: Carl v. Children's Hospital, 702 A.2d 159 (1997)
Jurisdiction: DC (municipal)
Effective Date: 1997-09-23
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2395626/carl-v-childrens-hospital/ ↗

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In this jurisdiction, for example, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia abolished common law charitable immunity, allowing a nurse acting in the course of duty, to recover damages from her nonprofit hospital employer for injuries caused when another hospital employee violently—and thus negligently—pushed a *167swinging door into her.6 Later, that court declared a furniture store installment sale contract unenforceable because its terms were “unconscionable”—a clear declaration and application of public policy, by judges, to protect consumers against a retailer’s overreaching.7 In doing so, the federal court was exercising its discretionary appellate authority at the time to overrule this court, which had held that the consumer should look not to the courts but to Congress for relief.8 A few years later, in an expansive act of statutory interpretation, the same federal court ruled that a landlord could not lawfully retaliate by evicting, on the usual thirty days’ notice, a month-to-month tenant who had reported housing code violations on the premises, despite the absence of any provision in the housing law that could be read as expressly prohibiting retaliatory eviction.9 Again, the court overruled this court, which had seen no such provision and said: “If, as some believe, the law relating to landlords and tenants is outdated, it should be brought up to date by legislation and not by court edict.”10

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