U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein has dismissed a lawsuit brought by rental property owners seeking compensation for losses they said resulted from Washington’s COVID-era eviction moratoriums.
The court emphasized that both Ninth Circuit precedent and Washington State precedent have consistently rejected the argument that pandemic-era landlord-tenant regulations constituted a physical taking of private property.
The case, Cedarland Homes LLC v. Ferguson, had backing from the Rental Housing Association of Washington.
The owners argued that the moratoriums effectively required them to allow nonpaying tenants to remain on their properties and therefore amounted to a government taking requiring compensation.
According to the complaint, Washington State’s eviction moratorium began on March 18, 2020, and remained in effect through June 2021 after being repeatedly extended; and, Seattle’s eviction moratorium began March 16, 2020, and remained in effect through October 31, 2022. According to the original complaint brought against the State of Washington, Governor Robert Ferguson, King County and several cities, including Seattle (Defendants), the Plaintiffs alleged that statewide and local eviction moratoria barred housing providers from removing residents who were not paying rent and limited their ability for meaningful recourse to mitigate losses, for example, housing providers were not able to collect late fees during the eviction moratoria. There was a limited temporary reimbursement program; however, the housing providers “alleged that it fell short of just compensation required under the United States Constitution.”
Lawyers for the housing providers filed an appeal with the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
