EAST TEXAS – Keeping property owners from booting tenants who don’t pay their rent out of fear of spreading COVID-19 is not enough a reason to sidestep the U.S. Constitution, a federal court recently opined.
Back in October, Lauren Terkel, along with several property management companies, filed suit against the Centers for Disease Control, asserting the CDC’s Eviction Moratorium Order exceeds the limitations of Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution.
The plaintiffs argued that when they expend “substantial financial resources” to build and maintain rental properties, they do so with the reasonable expectation that they will collect rent from tenants.
However, when the CDC issued its emergency order, a federal agency denied them their benefit of the bargain “on the pretext that exercising their well-established property rights will contribute to the spread of COVID-19,” the suit states.
On Feb. 25, U.S. District Judge Campbell Barker issued an opinion and order, granting declaratory relief in favor of the plaintiffs.
“Although the COVID-19 pandemic persists, so does the Constitution,” opined Barker. “Such broad authority over state remedies begins to resemble, in operation, a prohibited federal police power.”
In its final judgment, also issued on Feb. 25, the court found the CDC’s order exceeds the power granted to the federal government, declaring the order unlawful.
“The CDC attempted to use COVID-19 as an opportunity to grab power and the court rightfully corrected this egregious overreach,” said Robert Henneke, a Texas Public Policy Foundation attorney representing the plaintiffs, following the ruling.
“This case puts down a marker. There are real, meaningful, limits to federal power under our Constitution. And pandemic or not, federal courts have a ‘virtually unflagging obligation’ to impose those limits in cases brought before them.”
The CDC filed a notice of appeal on Feb. 27, court records show.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian Boynton represents the CDC.
Filed in the Eastern District of Texas, case No. 6:20-cv-00564.