NEW YORK (Legal Newsline) – In what turned out to be one of his last victories as governor, Andrew Cuomo prevailed at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in July in a lawsuit that challenged his eviction moratorium.
Landlords like plaintiffs 36 Apartment Associates, Elmsford Apartment Associates and 66 Apartment Associates got the bad news on July 16, about three weeks before Cuomo, now in the midst of a sexual harassment scandal, announced his resignation.’
They had pursued the case even though Cuomo’s order was mooted by legislation targeting eviction proceedings. Cuomo signed an extension of that law on May 5.
Cuomo’s eviction moratorium prevented landlords from booting tenants struggling to pay their rent because of the COVID-19 pandemic and ran for 60 days until Aug. 19, 2020.
“While the state legislature has enacted eviction moratorium provisions, they are different in material respects from the provision in EO 202.28 that is being challenged in this litigation,” the Second Circuit ruled.
“Moreover, at oral argument plaintiffs apparently abandoned their claim for nominal damages, which might otherwise have prevented their appeal from being mooted.”
The landlord plaintiffs argued their case wasn’t moot because it could prevent New York’s governor from engaging in improper acts again in the future.
“But this is not a case where the challenged restrictions were voluntarily withdrawn or altered during litigation,” the Second Circuit ruled.
“They expired by their own terms, and in the circumstances presented, including the intervening passage of legislation, we are not persuaded that there is a ‘reasonable expectation of recurrence.’”