The District of Columbia passed a law in 1980 called the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act. The law provides that when a landlord wishes to sell an apartment building with more than four units, he must first offer the tenants of the building the opportunity to purchase it at the same price and under the same terms offered to a third party.

In the late 1990s, lawyers for landlords in the District came up with a way to evade the law – focusing on how the Act defines a “sale,” they theorized that if they sold 95% of the property and then sold the remaining 5% over a year later, they could avoid their legal obligation to offer the property to the tenants. Later, several other similar schemes were developed, each intended to fall just outside the definition of a sale while allowing the seller and purchaser to reap the benefits of a sale. DCRA, the government agency responsible for carrying out the Act, went along with this scheme, and dozens of buildings were sold using these loopholes.

In 2003, Mehri & Skalet, along with Tycko & Zavareei LLP, brought a case in D.C. Superior Court challenging this practice. The case came to be known as the Twin Towers Plaza case. The plaintiffs were initially successful in the trial court: On November 24, 2003 Judge Wright denied the Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment and ruled that “as a matter of law” the transaction was a sale and that the tenants should have received their rights under the Act. Then the court reversed itself, stating that the transaction in the case was not a sale and that furthermore the plaintiff tenant organization lacked standing to pursue the case.

The plaintiffs appealed those rulings to the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. After extensive briefing, the case was heard by the appellate court on November 16, 2005.

On March 23, 2006, the D.C. Court of Appeals issued its decision in the Twin Towers case, ruling against the Tenants' Association. The court held that: (1) the 95-5 transaction at issue was not a sale; (2) because the transaction was not a sale, there was no cause of action under the CPPA; and (3) it was unnecessary to resolve the standing issue because of the ruling on the merits that the transaction was not a sale.