Eviction ban remains in effect after court issues stay of decision overturning it

Katy O'Donnell
·2 min read

The federal judge who last week overturned the national eviction moratorium issued a stay of her decision on Friday, allowing the ban on evictions to continue while the Justice Department appeals the ruling.

U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Dabney Friedrich ruled last week that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had exceeded its authority when it imposed a nationwide ban on evictions for nonpayment of rent in September. Congress and the Biden administration have since extended the ban, which is slated to expire June 30.

The Justice Department filed a motion seeking an emergency stay of the decision pending appeal hours after Friedrich released her decision last week. Friedrich on Friday said she was granting the motion because the Department of Health and Human Services had adequately demonstrated “irreparable injury” absent a stay.

“As the federal agency tasked with disease control, the Department, and the CDC in particular, have a strong interest in controlling the spread of COVID-19 and protecting public health,” Friedrich wrote in the decision.

“The CDC’s most recent order is supported by observational data analyses that estimate that as many as 433,000 cases of COVID-19 and thousands of deaths could be attributed to the lifting of state-based eviction moratoria,” she added.

But Friedrich also said the federal government failed to show a “substantial likelihood of success on the merits” in its appeal of her initial ruling.

The CDC order cited a 1944 public health law giving the HHS secretary certain powers to prevent communicable diseases from crossing state lines. Friedrich ruled that that law — which lists actions like fumigation and the impoundment of livestock — does not give the CDC the authority to ban evictions.

Landlords and real estate agents have challenged the moratorium in courts around the country, arguing that the CDC exceeded its authority and that the ban hurts landlords who are forced to subsidize struggling tenants’ housing under the threat of criminal penalties and hefty fines. Courts have issued conflicting rulings.