Eviction ban didn’t break Contracts Clause

Trial Notebook

By Steven P. Garmisa

Hoey & Farina

Posted September 29, 2021 10:40 AM

Rejecting a Contracts Clause attack on the validity of an eviction moratorium the City of Los Angeles enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals applied the modern interpretation of Art. I, Sec. 10, Cl. 1 of the U.S. Constitution (prohibiting state laws “impairing the obligation of contracts”). Before Home Bldg. & Loan Ass’n v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398 (1934), “the Contracts Clause imposed consequential limitations that federal courts routinely deployed to invalidate state and …

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