Supreme Court Blocks Part of New York’s Eviction Moratorium

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked part of an eviction moratorium in New York state in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“This is a very serious setback to our ability to protect renters in the midst of a pandemic,” said State Senator Brian Kavanagh, a Democrat and one of the sponsors of the moratorium law.

Randy M. Mastro, an attorney for landlords who challenged the law, said the court’s decision would allow “cases halted by the state moratorium law to continue so that both landlords and tenants can be heard”.

Still, the unsigned order from the court stressed that it only applies to a provision prohibiting eviction from tenants who submit a form stating that they have suffered economic setbacks as a result of the pandemic, rather than providing evidence in court . “This scheme violates the court’s longstanding teaching that normally ‘no one can be a judge in their own case’,” wrote the majority.

The order left other parts of the law intact, including a provision instructing housing judges not to evict tenants who were found to be in financial distress.

Other challenges to eviction moratoriums, including one recently imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, could soon be brought to court. This federal moratorium is on a precarious legal basis in the face of a June ruling in which a key judge said it could not be extended without the approval of Congress.

How many people could be directly affected by the judgment on Thursday was not clear. According to an analysis of the census data from the National Equity Atlas, a research group, there are more than 830,000 households in New York state, most of them in New York City, with an estimated total debt of more than $ 3.2 billion in arrears connected with the rent University of Southern California.

Mr Kavanagh said it appeared landlords could immediately file lawsuits for eviction from tenants. But a patchwork of other state and federal safeguards remains that could prevent their lawsuits from succeeding, including the CDC eviction moratorium that covers most of New York, including all of New York City.

Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is set to become New York’s next governor less than two weeks after Governor Andrew M. Cuomo resigned in a sexual harassment scandal, said in a statement that she would work with state lawmakers to “act quickly” are working to address the Supreme Court decision and strengthen eviction moratorium laws. “

“No New Yorker financially affected or displaced by the pandemic should be forced out of their home,” she said.

The three liberal members of the court objected to the order. Judge Stephen G. Breyer, who wrote for himself and Judges Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, said the law would expire in a few weeks and was not clearly unconstitutional.

“New York lawmakers have a responsibility to respond to a serious and unpredictable public health crisis,” wrote Judge Breyer. “It must fight the spread of a contagious disease, alleviate financial suffering from business closings, and minimize unnecessary evictions.”

“Legislators do not have absolute discretion in formulating this answer, but in this case I would not question the decision of the political officials on how best to ‘protect and protect’ the people of New York,” he wrote, citing one previous message opinion.

The Supreme Court ruling came as New York continued to struggle to provide federal pandemic aid to help tenants who defaulted on rent payments during the pandemic and landlords who had lost rental income.

Only about $ 100 million – or less than four percent of the state’s $ 2.7 billion – has been spent, state officials said this week. Even before the court’s ruling, the slow pace had led some lawmakers to warn that if they were not extended, large numbers of people could be evicted. The ruling only exacerbated these fears.

The case was brought in by several small landlords who said they had suffered severe hardship and even homelessness because the law allowed the eviction proceedings to be suspended by filing a form. The law does not release tenants from their obligation to pay rent or block claims for unpaid rent.

Law enforcement agencies, enacted in December 2020, said it addressed the pandemic by reducing the likelihood of people being forced into overcrowded shared apartments by mitigating the economic impact of the health crisis and reducing the burdens on courts and litigants.

Landlords argued that the law violated the principles of due process by denying them meaningful access to justice. They also opposed having to hand over the forms to their tenants, saying it was a violation of their First Amendment rights.

The majority did not respond to this second argument, and Judge Breyer said there were good reasons to be skeptical about it.

In June, Judge Gary R. Brown of the Brooklyn District Court dismissed the landlords’ arguments, despite admitting they had suffered serious financial difficulties.

Judge Brown relied on a 1905 Supreme Court precedent, Jacobson v Massachusetts, that states could require residents to be vaccinated against smallpox or pay a fine. Following this ruling, Judge Brown wrote, courts will not be allowed to question state lawmakers’ actions to deal with public health crises.

He also dismissed the landlords’ First Amendment arguments, saying that government-mandated disclosures and warnings were the order of the day in leases, mortgages and other documents.

The U.S. Appeals Court for the Second District in New York refused to block the moratorium while landlords appealed. The landlords then asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

State officials replied that the moratorium was a “temporary pause” that should expire in late August. Landlords said the moratorium could well be extended and pointed to the recent extension of a federal moratorium.

In June, the Supreme Court passed a nationwide moratorium on the CDC by 5 to 4 votes, which was due to expire at the end of July. Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, who appeared to have cast the casting vote in this case, wrote in a unanimous statement that any further extension would have to come from Congress.

Congress did not respond and the general federal moratorium expired. However, on August 3, the CDC announced a new order banning evictions in many parts of the country, saying that “evictions of tenants for non-payment of rent or housing payments could be detrimental to public health controls” that followed aim at the pandemic.

This order, which expires in early October unless extended or blocked in court, applies to regions of the country where the virus is “significantly and widely transmitted in the community”. President Biden said the new moratorium is expected to hit 90 percent of Americans who are renters.

Mihir Zaveri contributed the reporting.