Edwards v. Habib
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
397 F.2d 687 (1968)
Edwards (defendant), a month-to-month tenant, reported sanitary code violations to the city's licensing department; her landlord Habib (plaintiff) then gave her a 30-day eviction notice under a D.C. statute allowing no-cause eviction of month-to-month tenants. Edwards raised retaliatory motive as a defense, but the trial court excluded that evidence and ruled for Habib; the D.C. appellate court affirmed, reasoning the statute's silence on constitutional defenses meant none existed.
Whether a D.C. statute authorizing a landlord to evict a month-to-month tenant without cause implicitly authorizes a constitutional defense of retaliatory eviction, even though the statute does not expressly confer that right.