Emergency file

A group of Alabama real estate agents asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to block a federal moratorium on evictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May, a federal district judge agreed with the organization that the Centers for Disease Control had no authority to implement the policy, but she shelved the ruling to give the government time to appeal.Alabama Association of Realtors urge The Supreme Court intervened in an emergency and lifted the suspension order, and told the judges, “Congress has never given the CDC the amazing powers now claimed.”

After a similar moratorium issued by Congress expired, the CDC imposed the core moratorium on the case in September. The prohibition prohibits landlords from expelling tenants who cannot pay the rent. Landlords who violate the prohibition will be fined or even criminally penalized. Real estate agents argued in their 35-page document that the suspension order “transferred the financial burden of the pandemic from 30-40 million renters across the country to 10-11 million landlords-most of them,” just like this case. Like the challengers in China, “individuals and small businesses.” The challenger said that due to this policy, the landlord lost more than $13 billion in unpaid rent each month. The moratorium is currently scheduled to expire on June 30. Although the CDC has extended the moratorium twice before, the challenger told the court that the agency can do so again.

In May, the U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich lifted the moratorium. She concluded that the ban exceeded the powers given to the CDC by Congress in the federal public health law, and the agency relied on the law to implement the order. But she shelved her ruling during the government’s appeal, and the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the original case, leading to the filing of the application on Thursday.

The challenger told the judge that the suspension “will prolong the severe financial burden that the landlord will bear during the suspension”, which may be as high as $200 billion. In addition, they added that with the “declining trend of COVID-19 cases and the effectiveness of the vaccine,” any public health reason for the suspension is now an excuse.

The request of the real estate agent was passed to Chief Justice John Roberts, who was in charge of handling the urgent request in the District of Columbia. Roberts can act on the application himself, but he is more likely to submit it to the full court.

The situation is Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services.

This article is Originally published in Howe on the Court.