Judge Denies Motion To Block NY’s Anti-Eviction Law
JUNE 14, 2021 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT: JUNE 15, 2021
A New York federal judge has denied a motion by a trade group and several small landlords to block enforcement of a state law preventing most pandemic-era residential evictions, finding that the plaintiffs’ constitutional violation arguments are not likely to succeed.
U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown issued the Friday order in favor of the defendant, New York Chief Administrative Judge Lawrence K. Marks, saying that state laws — like the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction and Foreclosure Prevention Act, or CEEFPA, at issue here — are not generally susceptible to due process claims.
While the “legislature’s power is not without constitutional limitation,” Judge Brown noted in the 26-page order, the length of the current anti-eviction law, considered in the context of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, is not extreme enough to override the presumption that the law is constitutional.