Landlords and homebuilders filed suit in federal court against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in an effort to block an eviction moratorium issued last month by the federal public health agency.
The lawsuit, known as Skyworks Ltd. v. CDC, was filed Oct. 23 in federal court in Ohio. It names the agency and its director, Robert R. Redfield, as defendants.
The CDC argues the eviction ban is needed to curb the spread of the CCP virus, which causes the disease COVID-19, although tenants can invoke the ban whether they suffer from virus-related hardships or not.
Tenants establish eligibility under the moratorium by providing their landlords with a CDC-approved declaration stating that they make under $99,000 annually, are unable to pay rent because of a loss of income, have tried to obtain government assistance, will try to make partial rent payments, and will be homeless or will have to move in with others if they are evicted.
Once they submit a declaration, a landlord can’t evict them.
“It’s unconstitutional,” said Luke Wake, an attorney with the Sacramento, California-based Pacific Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm representing landlords in this case, whose properties are occupied by tenants who stopped paying rent when the bans were enacted.
“Federal agencies don’t get to just make up law,” Wake said in an interview with The Epoch Times.
“It’s very strange. The CDC exists to track and monitor epidemics and contagious diseases, as some sort of a resource to public health authorities and whatnot, but they have very limited regulatory powers.”…
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