Alabama Association of Realtors v. Department of Health and Human Services
The Court refused to lift a lower court's pause on its ruling against the CDC's nationwide eviction moratorium, leaving the moratorium in place through its scheduled July 31, 2021 expiration.
The deciding vote — Justice Kavanaugh — agreed the CDC had overstepped its authority but said any extension beyond July 31 would require Congress to pass new legislation, not just another agency order.
How it got here: A federal district court struck down the CDC's nationwide eviction moratorium but paused its own ruling; a real estate industry coalition asked the Supreme Court to lift that pause immediately.
The Case in Depth
What happened
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a nationwide order halting most evictions of renters who could not pay rent. A coalition of real estate associations and landlords argued the CDC had no legal authority to issue such a sweeping order. A federal district court agreed and struck the moratorium down, but then paused its own ruling while the case continued. The real estate groups asked the Supreme Court to lift that pause so the district court's ruling would take effect immediately.
The question before the Court
Did the Supreme Court need to immediately lift a lower court's pause on its ruling that the CDC's nationwide eviction moratorium exceeded the agency's legal authority?
The Court's answer
No — the Court refused to lift the lower court's pause, leaving the CDC's eviction moratorium in place. The five justices who voted to deny the application concluded that the moratorium, already scheduled to expire in a matter of weeks on July 31, should be allowed to run out naturally, and that the remaining time would help facilitate a more orderly distribution of rental assistance funds Congress had already approved.
Critically, the deciding vote — Justice Kavanaugh — openly agreed that the CDC had exceeded its existing statutory authority in issuing the moratorium. His vote to deny rested entirely on the short time remaining and the balance of practical harms, not a finding that the moratorium was lawful. He expressly stated that any extension past July 31 would require new congressional legislation — the CDC could not do it on its own.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Millions of renters protected by the CDC's eviction moratorium kept that protection through its scheduled end date, while landlords and real estate groups had to wait for the underlying legal challenge to play out. Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence also sent a direct warning to the CDC: any new or extended moratorium would need explicit congressional approval to survive legal scrutiny.
What changes now
The CDC's eviction moratorium remained in effect through its scheduled July 31, 2021 expiration. Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence made plain that any extension would require Congress to pass new legislation — a direct signal to the executive branch about the legal limits of CDC authority. The underlying lawsuit about those limits continued in the lower courts after the moratorium lapsed.
What this does not decide
The Court did not rule on whether the CDC's eviction moratorium was ultimately lawful — only that it would not disturb the lower court's pause before the moratorium expired on its own. The broader question of the CDC's statutory authority was expressly left for the lower courts to resolve.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Kavanaugh
“clear and specific congressional authorization (via new legislation) would be necessary for the CDC to extend the moratorium past July 31.”Kavanaugh's warning that the CDC could not extend the eviction moratorium without explicit new approval from Congress.
Justice Kavanaugh agreed with the district court and the challengers that the CDC exceeded its existing statutory authority in issuing the nationwide eviction moratorium. He voted to deny emergency relief only because the moratorium was set to expire in a few weeks and lifting it immediately would disrupt the distribution of rental assistance funds. He was explicit that any extension past July 31 would require new legislation from Congress — not merely another agency order.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The threshold legal question was whether the CDC's nationwide eviction moratorium exceeded the agency's existing statutory authority — that is, whether Congress had actually given the CDC the power to halt evictions across the country. Justice Kavanaugh, writing separately, agreed with the district court and the challengers that the answer was no, citing the principle that agencies cannot take sweeping policy actions without clear authorization from Congress.
- Because five justices voted to deny the application, the Court then had to apply the standard test for emergency relief: weighing whether the side seeking the order was likely to ultimately win, and balancing the practical harms on each side of granting or denying the request.
- Justice Kavanaugh — the pivotal fifth vote — concluded that the balance of equities favored denying emergency relief because the moratorium was already scheduled to end in only a few weeks, on July 31. Lifting it immediately would cause disruption without meaningfully changing the ultimate outcome.
- He further reasoned that allowing the moratorium to expire on schedule would give more time for the orderly distribution of congressionally approved rental assistance funds, reducing the harm to renters even without the moratorium's formal protections.
- Kavanaugh added a clear limiting signal: if the CDC sought to extend the moratorium beyond July 31, it would need clear and specific new authorization from Congress — the agency's existing statutory authority was not enough to support any extension.