US Supreme Court Blocks CDC Eviction Moratorium
US Supreme Court Blocks CDC Eviction Moratorium, in decision issued 08/26/21 in Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services, ___ US ___ (08/26/21): Just one day after the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to enjoin the residential eviction moratorium of the City of Los Angeles, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated a lower court order blocking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (“CDC”) latest eviction moratorium on Thursday evening, granting a request from a group of landlords and Realtor associations claiming the CDC had overstepped its authority.
The CDC has repeatedly renewed the eviction moratorium for millions of tenants affected by the pandemic, in large part to allow them to remain in their rented apartments/houses, even though they were far behind (far in default) in paying rent owed to their landlords. The most recent nationwide residential eviction moratorium that President Biden had the CDC issue was until Oct. 3, 2021. Very little of the billions of payments to landlords, that Congress had approved, had actually been paid to landlords, to make up for the rents the tenants were NOT paying the landlords.
In the 8/26/21 opinion, 6 of the 9 US Supreme Court Justices ruled that the eviction ban exceeded the CDC’s authority to combat communicable diseases, forcing landlords to bear the pandemic’s costs, stating: “The moratorium has put…millions of landlords across the country, at risk of irreparable harm by depriving them of rent payments with no guarantee of eventual recovery,” the court said. “Many landlords have modest means. And preventing them from evicting tenants who breach their leases intrudes on one of the most fundamental elements of property ownership—the right to exclude.”