US federal appeals court rejects suit challenging COVID-19 eviction moratorium News
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US federal appeals court rejects suit challenging COVID-19 eviction moratorium

The US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit by landlords challenging part of New York’s eviction moratorium statute.

In December 2020, New York passed the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2020 to prevent evictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Five landlords and a real estate industry trade group in New York sued the state court administration and county sheriffs on May 6.

In August, the Supreme Court issued an emergency order blocking part of New York’s eviction moratorium. The court found a due process violation with a “self-attestation” provision that let tenants declare financial hardship to avoid eviction without being required to offer proof to landlords. New York legislators then amended the law in response to the Supreme Court’s order.

On Wednesday, the appeals court found that the landlords’ due process claims were moot due to the change in the moratorium law. In so determining, the court stated:

In this case, we cannot be certain how the new procedures in Subpart C(A) 2021 will be implemented in practice in the state courts or what administrative steps the Chief Administrative Judge of those courts might think are necessary, if any, to mitigate the alleged due process deficiencies in those procedures. But we do not think we should undertake to rule on those matters definitively on this appeal, which is nominally a challenge to the expired provisions of the old statute but is realistically an attempt to challenge the new statute.

Because of this, the court vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded the case with leave for the plaintiffs to amend their pleadings.

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