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Financial Services Law Insights and Observations

District Court vacates CDC’s nationwide eviction moratorium

Courts Covid-19 Evictions DOJ Public Health Service Act CDC

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On May 5, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia vacated the CDC’s eviction moratorium issued in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, ruling that the agency exceeded its authority with the temporary ban. The nationwide eviction ban was recently extended until June 30. Other courts have ruled on the lawfulness of the eviction moratorium but have limited the scope of their decisions to apply only to the particular parties involved in those lawsuits (see, e.g. InfoBytes coverage here). However, in vacating the eviction moratorium, the court rejected the federal government’s request that the decision be narrowed. “The Department urges the Court to limit any vacatur order to the plaintiffs with standing before this Court,” the court wrote. However the court found that “[t]his position is ‘at odds with settled precedent’” and that “when ‘regulations are unlawful, the ordinary result is that the rules are vacated—not that their application to the individual petitioner is proscribed.’” The court further emphasized that “[i]t is the role of the political branches, and not the courts, to assess the merits of policy measures designed to combat the spread of disease, even during a global pandemic.” Specifically, the court noted that 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. Because the plain language of the Public Health Service Act . . . unambiguously forecloses the nationwide eviction moratorium, the Court must set aside the CDC order.” 

Following the ruling, the DOJ issued a statement announcing its intention to appeal the court’s decision, citing that the court’s order “conflicts with the text of the statute, Congress’s ratification of the moratorium, and the rulings of other courts.”