Supreme Court Halts Biden Eviction Moratorium

The Supreme Court on Thursday halted the Biden administration’s eviction moratorium, holding that it was “virtually certain” that the landlords who claimed the centers for Disease Control exceeded its legal authority would win.

The victory of the property owners was expected. The CDC’s argument that it could unilaterally impose a nationwide moritorium in any place with high levels of covid infections was almost completely ungrounded in law.

In the lower courts, a federal district judge in Washington, DC, rejected a bid from a group of landlords to block the Biden administration’s renewed eviction moratorium. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, had ruled against the Centers for Disease Control’s earlier ban on evictions, but her ruling was overturned by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In Friday’s ruling, she said she was bound by the Appeals Court decision.

Judge Friedrich wrote that absent the D.C. Circuit’s judgment, she would have also overturned the renewed moratorium.