Section 1639

Citation: Section 1639
Parent Document: Tippett v. Daly, 10 A.3d 1123 (2010)
Jurisdiction: DC (municipal)
Effective Date: 2010-12-30
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2551230/tippett-v-daly/ ↗

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Finally, there is a procedural motion to submit additional evidence that the trial judge could well want to reconsider on remand for further proceedings. TOPA requires that copies of the owner's offer of sale and tenant's expression of interest in purchasing be sent to the Mayor. See D.C.Code 42-3404.09(1). At trial, the owner claimed that he sent a copy of the offer of sale to the Mayor, as required by TOPA, but there was no written verification of a filed and date-stamped copy. The tenant also claimed that he had taken a copy of his letter of interest to purchase to the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, (DCRA) the same day that he sent it to the owner. However, a representative from the DCRA that administers TOPA testified that nothing had been filedby the owner or the tenantwith respect to the property. The owner has argued on appeal to the division and to the en banc court that the trial court erred in crediting the tenant's testimony that he had filed with DCRA. The owner argues that whether the tenant filed with DCRA is a "factual dispute," emphasizing the lack of corroborating evidence. After trial but before the trial judge decided the case, the tenant sought to reopen the record to introduce evidence that corroborated his testimony, proffering a copy of the notice of intent to purchase he filed with DCRA, bearing a date-stamp of May 18, 2001, the same day that the tenant's notice was sent by certified mail to the owner. That means that a copy of the tenant's notice to the owner was actually received within the thirty-day period (as defined by the court) by one of the two recipients required by the statute. The trial court denied the tenant's request to reopen the record. Although the judge did not explain her reasoning, most likely it was because she deemed it irrelevant in light of her determination that the tenant's notice had been timely provided to the owner. But the documentary corroboration of the tenant's testimony of timely filing with DCRA, when contrasted with the apparent lack of corroboration concerning the owner's alleged filing of the required offer with the Mayor, could have a bearing on the fact-finder's acceptance or rejection of the owner's testimony that it took two weeks (until two days after the deadline) for the owner to receive the tenant's notice. Because the factual record remains unresolved as to a material fact in dispute, on remand, the trial court might wish to reconsider the tenant's motion to reopen, as it could shed light on that factual question that now becomes relevant under a correct understanding of the law.

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