InfoBytes Blog
District Court denies TRO request to block CFPB’s eviction disclosure rule
On May 14, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee denied a request for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to block a CFPB interim final rule (IFR), which requires all landlords to disclose to tenants certain federal protections put in place as a result of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. As previously covered by InfoBytes, the plaintiffs sued the CFPB asserting the IFR violates their First Amendment rights because it “mandates untrue speech and encourages plainly misleading speech” by requiring disclosures about a moratorium that has been challenged or invalidated by several federal courts, including a court in Tennessee where the complaint was filed, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The Bureau urged the court to deny the temporary injunction, arguing, among other things, that “requiring debt collectors to provide routine, factual notification of rights or legal protections that consumers ‘may’ have, in jurisdictions where the CDC [o]rder applies, does not compel false speech and plainly passes First Amendment muster” (covered by InfoBytes here).
In denying the plaintiffs’ request to block the enactment of the IFR, the court ruled that the IFR does not apply where courts have already blocked the CDC’s eviction order from being enforced. Therefore, “[b]y its very terms, the [IFR] compels nothing at all—including disclosure of false speech—in jurisdictions where the CDC [o]rder does not apply (whether due to a court order declaring the [IFR] invalid, or to something else).” Additionally, the court noted that the plaintiffs’ First Amendment arguments did not suggest that they would suffer irreparable harm without a TRO, as “[p]laintiffs cannot be harmed by a rule where it does not apply.” The court also addressed the plaintiffs’ claim that the rule is unlawful under the Administrative Procedures Act because it requires disclosures not mandated under the FDCPA that could contain false, deceptive, or misleading representations. Because debt collectors in jurisdictions where the CDC order does not apply do not have to make the required disclosures, the IFR cannot be “unlawful on the grounds that it requires false disclosures.”
The court did not opine as to the “wisdom or fairness” of the IFR or the CDC’s order, or whether the IFR is “likely unlawful for any reason other than the particular ones” put forth by the plaintiffs.