Section 4625

Citation: Section 4625
Parent Document: Cole v. Harris, 187 U.S. App. D.C. 156 (1977)
Jurisdiction: United States (federal)
Effective Date: 1977-11-14
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/7891523/cole-v-harris/ ↗

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To read the confident language of Chief Judge Bazelon’s opinion one would never guess that three circuits, three districts, twelve federal judges — every federal judge considering the issue before this case — had ruled contrary to the result reached by my colleagues here. They say that “appellees qualify as ‘displaced persons’' within the plain terms of the notice clause” and that this “common sense interpretation is reinforced by consideration of the policies of the Relocation Act.”1 The Seventh Circuit *166in Alexander v. HUD2 held squarely the reverse; Alexander involved the notice clause, not the acquisition clause, and cannot fairly be distinguished from our case here. The Eighth Circuit in Harris v. Lynn3 dealt with persons displaced from property already owned by the federal agency, our situation here, and held that the tenants were not “displaced persons” under the Act, even though they may have moved pursuant to a notice to vacate, because absence of a federal “acquisition” was the key. The Second Circuit in Caramico v. HUD4 likewise held contrary in both rationale and result to the decision of my colleagues here, who attempt to distinguish Caramico on the ground that it involved the acquisition clause, not the notice clause. That same distinction was argued in Alexander and rejected by the Seventh Circuit, which pointed out that the rationale of Caramico applies with equal validity whether the acquisition or the notice clause is involved.

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