The federal government is making one last-ditch effort to avoid paying out potentially billions of dollars to cover the damage caused by its illegal pandemic-era eviction moratorium.
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to consider whether an eviction moratorium first issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in September 2020 constituted a taking of landlords’ property requiring compensation from the federal government.
With that request, the DOJ is hoping to overturn an August 2024 decision made by a three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit, which found that the federal government, by banning landlords from removing tenants for non-payment of rent, had physically taken their property and was liable for the damages.
That decision came in the case of Darby Development Co. v. United States, a class action lawsuit first brought by landlords back in July 2021.