A federal judge granted a temporary stay as the Justice Department moved to appeal her decision on Wednesday to vacate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national eviction moratorium.
D.C. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich ordered the pause on Wednesday hours after ruling the CDC lacks the authority under federal law to authorize such a moratorium, which the Trump administration first imposed last September as a means of helping renters struggling financially because of the coronavirus pandemic. The Biden administration reauthorized the moratorium through June 30.
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“The question for the Court is a narrow one: Does the Public Health Service Act grant the CDC the legal authority to impose a nationwide eviction moratorium? It does not,” Friedrich wrote in her 20-page opinion on Wednesday, after which the DOJ sought an emergency stay pending an appeal.
JUDGE OVERTURNS FEDERAL PANDEMIC EVICTION MORATORIUM
“The Department of Justice respectfully disagrees with today’s decision of the district court in Alabama Association of Realtors v. HHS concluding that the moratorium exceeds CDC’s statutory authority to protect public health,” Brian Boynton, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Division, said in a statement following Friedrich’s ruling, announcing the department had already filed a notice of appeal. “In the department’s view, that decision conflicts with the text of the statute, Congress’s ratification of the moratorium, and the rulings of other courts.”
In agreeing to a pause, Friedrich also ordered that the plaintiffs file any opposition to the DOJ motion by May 12, after which the defendants have four days to respond.
Plaintiffs, led by the Alabama Association of Realtors, argued in their original complaint filed on Nov. 20 that the moratorium was beyond the CDC’s statutory authority and that the agency “unilaterally shifted billions of dollars in economic burdens from one group of Americans, renters, to another, landlords.”
The department suggested in its stay motion on Wednesday that $46 billion in emergency rental assistance authorized by the federal government cushions landlords from experiencing financial injury.
It also argued that Congress gave its stamp of approval to the eviction moratorium, which it extended through Jan. 31 in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 that passed just before year’s end, and that the pandemic is still raging, favoring deference to the government to stretch it even later.
“CDC’s most recent extension of the order makes plain that the balance of harms continues to heavily favor the government, and that enjoining the CDC order would not serve the public interest,” the motion said. “The public health experts at CDC have found that the pandemic remains a significant threat, and the order remains necessary to mitigate the further spread of COVID-19.”
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Friedrich’s ruling on Wednesday only applies to the CDC’s moratorium and does not affect current eviction bans such as those in place in New York and Illinois.
