Alabama Realtors Association hands Biden administration legal defeat as SCOTUS overturns eviction moratorium

The Alabama Realtors Association, along with other plaintiffs, on Thursday dealt the Biden administration a major legal defeat as the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recently-extended eviction moratorium.

The nation’s highest court overturned the Biden administration’s eviction moratorium, which was implemented to bar landlords from evicting tenants who reside in counties that were heavily impacted by COVID-19 that failed to meet their monthly payment obligations.

Many landlords have experienced financial hardship due to the CDC-mandated moratorium as property owners were still legally bound to pay their bank notes while tenants were granted remission of rent payments.

BREAKING: The Supreme Court lifts the federal eviction moratorium. In an unsigned 8-page opinion (with the three liberals dissenting), SCOTUS sides with a group of landlords who argued that the CDC lacked the authority to bar evictions during the pandemic.https://t.co/LNrCxd7f9X https://t.co/NecnZ90zgf

— SCOTUSblog (@SCOTUSblog) August 27, 2021

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the cabinet-level department which houses the CDC, was handed a legal defeat due to the Supreme Court finding that the Alabama Realtors Association was correct in its assertion that the CDC does not hold the authority to arbitrarily extend such a broad-sweeping order.

The plaintiffs were previously victorious at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia as it vacated the moratorium, finding the order to be unlawful. However, the court issued a stay on the ruling as the federal government sought an appeal. The Supreme Court on Thursday vacated that stay, thus delivering a major victory to property rights advocates.

Last March, Congress passed legislation putting in place a 120-day eviction ban. After the four-month period ended, Congress opted not to extend the moratorium. The CDC then unilaterally extended the ban, with it effectively remaining in place until the end of July of this year. Congress once again failed to address the moratorium which led to it being reimposed by the CDC.

The ruling concludes in part, “It is indisputable that the public has a strong interest in combating the spread of the COVID–19 Delta variant. But our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in pursuit of desirable ends,” further stating “[I]t is up to Congress, not the CDC, to decide whether the public interest merits further action here.”

Liberal Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan were the court’s lone three dissenters in the ruling.