Supreme Court Partially Blocks New York Eviction Moratorium: Read It For Yourself

The Supreme Court ruled to partially block the New York eviction moratorium in an unsigned order that drew a dissent from Justices Breyer, Sotomayer, and Kagan.

SCOTUSblog:

A divided Supreme Court on Thursday night granted a request from a group of New York landlords to lift part of a state moratorium on residential evictions put in place at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ruling in Chrysafis v. Marks came three days after a federal district judge in Washington, D.C., heard oral argument in a challenge to the Biden administration’s newly enacted federal moratorium on evictions in most of the country.

The state moratorium allows tenants in New York to avoid eviction by declaring that they have suffered “financial hardship” as a result of the pandemic. New York enacted the moratorium in 2020 and has extended it through Aug. 31, 2021.

The landlords went to federal court in New York to challenge the moratorium, arguing that it violates their right to due process by allowing tenants to put eviction proceedings on hold without any proof that the pandemic has affected them and without giving landlords a chance to rebut their assertions. A federal district court dismissed their challenge, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit turned down the landlords’ request to put the moratorium on hold while they appeal.

The landlords turned to the Supreme Court at the end of July, telling the justices that “the courthouse door has been barred to New York’s landlords” for over a year. And when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) recently declared that the state’s “disaster emergency” is over, and the economy is reopening, they contended, the state cannot point to the pandemic to justify maintaining its ban on evictions.

Opposing the landlords’ request to block the state moratorium, New York pointed to a decision in late June in which a divided Supreme Court allowed a prior version of the federal eviction moratorium to remain in place for one month. In that case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh provided the key fifth vote to keep the moratorium in place. He wrote that the Centers for Disease Control had exceeded its authority when it extended the nationwide moratorium, but he joined Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices in voting to maintain the moratorium because it was scheduled to expire on July 31.

Shortly after that federal moratorium expired, the CDC enacted a new, 60-day moratorium on evictions in areas of the country hardest hit by the Delta variant. The legal challenge to the new federal moratorium may reach the justices soon.

Read the Supreme Court’s order on the New York eviction moratorium for yourself here:
New York eviction moratorium