District of Columbia OFFICIAL CODE 2001 Edition Containing the Laws, general and permanent in their nature, relating to or in force in the District of Columbia (Except such laws as are of application in the General and Permanent Laws of the United States) as of September 13, 2012 Volume 9 Title 16 Particular Actions, Proceedings and Matters A Thomson Reuters business Mat #41136724 COPYRIGHT © 2001-2012 By The District of Columbia All Rights Reserved. West's and Westlaw are registered trademarks used herein under license. Registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Phil Mendelson, Chairman Yvette M. Alexander Jack Evans Marion Barry Jim Graham Muriel Bowser Kenyan R. McDuffie Michael A. Brown Vincent B. Orange, Sr. David A. Catania Tommy Wells Mary M. Cheh OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL Under Whose Direction This Volume Has Been Prepared V. David Zvenyach, General Counsel John Hoellen, Legislative Counsel Benjamin F. Bryant, Jr., Codification Counsel Karen R. Barbour, Legal Assistant * III PREFACE TO THE 2001 EDITION The 2001 Edition of the District of Columbia Official Code marks the eighth time that a compilation of the laws of the District of Columbia has been published by, or under the authority of, the government of the District of Columbia or that of the United States. The District of Columbia Code was first published in 1929; eleven years later, the Second Edition (1940) was published; another eleven years later, the Third Edition (1951); ten years later, the Fourth Edition (1961); six years later, the Fifth Edition (1967); another six years later, the Sixth Edition (1973); and 8 years later, the Seventh Edition (1981) was published. The time between the publication of the Seventh Edition and this Eighth Edition represents the longest period, by almost a decade, that the District of Columbia Code has gone unrevised in its 72 year history. The District's Charter, which in 1973, established the current tripartite government of the District of Columbia, makes it incumbent upon the legisla tive branch to publish and codify every act of the Council, as the Council directs, upon becoming law, so that the residents of the District may have ready access to the laws by which they are governed. In 1973, however, the framers of the District's constitution could not have foreseen the incredible technologi cal advances that would occur in the next 25 years nor the impact they would have on the Code. With the close of the 20th Century the world has witnessed the triumph of the Information Age, the rise of the World Wide Web, and the explosion of word processing and data storage technology. These phenomena have helped make the reproduction of legal text and data a fast, easy, and inexpensive enterprise, giving rise to a plethora of publishing mediums, and have made it a relatively simple task to reproduce existing legal text, including the District of Columbia Code. The rapid rise of the Computer Age has allowed virtually anyone with an ordinary personal computer to reproduce and compile the laws of the District of Columbia. The laws of the District, however, are fluid, not stagnant, as they are amended several times each year. The quality and accuracy of publications not directed by the Council are beyond its control. The Council can only warrant the Code for which it has authorized publication. Therefore, in order to ensure that the residents of the District may distinguish between the compilation of District laws as produced under the direction of the elected officials of the District of Columbia and those of other persons, we have added the word "Official" to the title of the Code. Also to ensure that the Council never loses the right to publish its own laws, the government of the District of Columbia has retained the copyright to the District of Columbia Official Code. The codified laws of the District of Columbia are created as a result of legislative action on the part of 13 individuals elected by the residents of the District of Columbia to enact the laws that govern the District, and by the Congress. Once the legislative process is complete, the Council, through its V PREFACE TO THE 2001 EDITION delegation of authority to its Office of the General Counsel, codifies the laws in the form of this Code. In the process of codification, the Office of the General Counsel interprets any discrepancies in the drafting of the laws using common ly recognized rules of statutory construction. No other entity is authorized by law to make these determinations. As set forth by federal law and recognized by the Courts of the District of Columbia, this Code establishes prima facie evidence of the laws in force in the District of Columbia.1 It is this continuity of authority, fron1 enactment to codification to judicial review that gives this Code its authenticity and officiality as the content of the laws of the District of Columbia. The 2001 Edition represents a recodification of the 1981 Edition in that it contains a reorganization of the presentation of the laws, inclusion of some previously omitted legal provisions, and the on1ission of non-substantive extra neous provisions. The theory behind the recodification is to purify the organiza tion of the Code which over many decades has seen the haphazard mixing of original ("organic") provisions of laws throughout the Code. In the 2001 Edition, we have established a system of codification that follows the legislative drafting principals established over many years in the Council's Office of the General Counsel. The recodification is not an overhaul of the Code. Although a cleanup of antiquated, repealed and omitted provisions is long overdue, it is not the province of the Office of the General Counsel to determine which laws should be expunged as obsolete. Such decisions should be left to a working group commissioned by the Council to recommend revisions to the Code. The Office of the General Counsel has simply separated the organic laws into discrete divisions and topical categories. As much as is possible, we have followed a rule that requires that all organic law remain intact: closely following the layout of the originating act. We have retained notes to repealed sections to aid in legal research and preserved the numbering style that was first introduced in the Second Edition. Thanks to the resourcefulness of the publisher and the Coun cil's Office of the General Counsel staff, we have corrected provisions of law erroneously added to, or deleted from, prior editions. The Code is organized into eight Divisions of practical law: government organization; judicial organization; decedent estates; criminal law; business law; education; property; and general laws. Each division is subdivided by subject matter called Titles, organic laws, called Chapters and Subchapters, and finally, individual Sections representing the individual sections of the organic law. Occasionally, Subtitles are used to organize chapters oLorganic law, Units to organize subchapters, and Parts and Subparts to organize the additional divisions within the organic law. One important change that the user will notice, and hopefully appreciate, is that the District's Charter, the Home Rule Act, is codified in its entirety in one location so that the framework of the current District government can be readily found. We hope that the organiza tion of the 2001 Edition of the District of Colulnbia Official Code will serve as a 1 See 1 u.s.c § 204(b) (1994); Sheetz v. District of Columbia, 629 A.2d 515,519 (D.C. 1993). VI PREFACE TO THE 2001 EDITION foundation for further refinement by future law revision cOlnmissions or their equivalent. The 2001 Edition has been prepared under the supervision of Benjamin F. Bryant, Jr., Codification Counsel, Office of the General Counsel, Council of the District of Columbia. I~ ... ~odJ~ ~otte ~pp Broo&s-Hudson Ch.ain:nan General Counsel Council of the District of Columbia Council of the Pistrict of Columbia * VII USER'S GUIDE This volume contains Title 16, Particular Actions, Proceedings and Matters. The text in this volume is updated with laws, general and permanent in their nature, relating to or in force or finally adopted in the District of Columbia as of September 13, 2012 (except such laws as are of application in the General and Permanent Laws of the United States). The organization and numbering of provisions in this Code constitutes the Official Code, 200 1 Edition. All standard annotative features of West-edited statutes are continually updat ed for Inaximum utility. These valuable research features include: SESSION LAW HISTORY Statutory text is followed by a chronological listing of session laws that have enacted and amended the section. In addition, the prior codification feature contains citations to where the section was classified under the 1973 and 1981 Editions of the District of Columbia Code. HISTORICAL AND STATUTORY NOTES Amendment notes have been supplied throughout the Code explaining legisla tive changes in the text together with information concerning temporary and emergency acts, legislative history, and related provisions. Notes are editorially supplied to assist in understanding and interpreting the language contained in the Code. UNIFORM LAWS AND OFFICIAL COMMENTS Uniform laws drafted by the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws that have been adopted in the District of Columbia will be identified by references to identical or similar provisions in Uniform Laws Annotated. Uniform laws tables specify other jurisdictions that have adopted uniform laws enacted in the District of Columbia. In addition, drafters' commentary created by the American Law Institute and National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Law has been incor porated as deemed appropriate and helpful. We gratefully acknowledge the American Law Institute and National Confer ence of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws for permission to reproduce the official comments in the District of Columbia Official Code, 200 1 Edition. These comlnents are indispensable to an understanding of the objectives and purposes of these uniform laws and will becon1e increasingly important to the Bench and Bar in the interpretation and application of these laws to the specific legal problems that are sure to arise thereunder. CROSS REFERENCES There is an obvious kinship of the various laws included in the volumes of the District of Columbia Official Code, 200 1 Edition. To enable full research use of IX USER'S GUIDE the interrelationship, time-saving cross references are provided to related or qualifying constitutional and statutory provisions. LAW REVIEW AND JOURNAL COMMENTARIES Informative articles and discussions in Law Reviews and Journals are brought to the attention of the user by references under this heading. Refer enced publications include: American University Law Review Catholic University Law Review George Washington Law Review Georgetown Law Journal Howard Law Journal The University of the District of Columbia Law Review LIBRARY REFERENCES A special feature that will appeal to District of Columbia Code users consists of references to West's Key Numbers (~) in the Atlantic and American Digest Systems and WestlawNext or Westlaw Digest topic numbers. These references provide access to constructions and interpretations of statu tory law in all jurisdictions throughout the country. In addition, this feature contains references to American Law Reports (ALR) materials, encyclopedias including American Jurisprudence (Am Jur) and Corpus Juris Secundum (C.J.S.), practice sets including American Jurisprudence Proof of Facts and American Jurisprudence Trials, and forms including American Jurisprudence Legal Forms and American Jurisprudence Pleading and Practice Forms. UNITED STATES CODE ANNOTATED Cross references to federal laws contained in United States Code Annotated (U.S.C.A.) are also provided where deemed relevant or helpful. UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT REFERENCES This feature specially annotates pertinent references to leading relevant decisions of the United States Supreme Court interpretive of state statutes regardless of the geographical origins of the cases. JUDICIAL CONSTRUCTIONS OR NOTES OF DECISIONS The judicial constructions of the District of Columbia Official Code, 200 1 Edition, contained in the annotations in this volume have been reviewed by the Publisher's editorial staff. The editorial objective is to provide comprehensive, relevant and authoritative annotations with minimal duplication to assist in understanding the application and purpose of the statutes as determined by the courts. Notes of decisions of District and Federal courts include cases published through August 31,2012. x