A state appeals court has been asked to step in and decide whether Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has the power to indefinitely continue issuing executive orders, prohibiting landlords, many of whom say they are approaching financial ruin, from forcing apartment and rental house tenants to either pay their rent or face eviction.
Attorneys for a group of owners of apartment buildings and rental homes confirmed they have appealed the ruling of a Will County judge, who determined Illinois law gives Pritzker the power to continue to impose a moratorium on evictions, which has been in place since March. The landlords had sued Pritzker, arguing his anti-eviction orders violated their constitutional property rights, and amounted to an illegal taking of their property, by forcing them to foot the bill for the tenants’ continued use of their property, even if the tenants took advantage of the situation by simply refusing to pay rent.
The order blocks landlords from even beginning the process of removing non-paying tenants from their properties, or continuing eviction processes that had begun before the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak and Pritzker’s use of emergency powers to combat the disease’s spread.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker
Even as the appeal moves forward, Pritzker renewed the eviction moratorium on Aug. 22, extending the tenant protection measures another 30 days, to Sept. 19, at least. The extension came a few days after Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, whose office enforces evictions in Chicago and suburban Cook, publicly asked Pritzker to prevent a “tsunami” of evictions that would follow the lifting of the eviction ban.
Pritzker has argued, and Dart has agreed, that lifting the eviction ban at this point in the pandemic would result in a new wave of homelessness and transience that would, in turn, make it harder to fight the COVID-19 outbreak.
Landlords, however, had a different take on the extension of the order.
In a prepared statement, the Illinois Rental Property Owners Association said “there is no rent payment crisis” in Illinois or elsewhere.
They said unemployment benefits have “successfully supported renters” amid the pandemic and the lockdown restrictions imposed by governors, including Pritzker, to fight it, which contributed to an historic economic downturn.
The IRPOA pointed to data supplied by the National Multifamily Housing Council, which they said showed only 2% more tenants have not paid their rent to this point in 2020, compared to 2019.
Further, the landlords said, Pritzker’s orders further tramples on their rights by locking them out of the court system entirely, and even forbidding landlords from informing tenants when they have fallen behind on their rent.
“The Governor has worried publicly about a pending flood of evictions,” the IRPOA said. “That is a problem caused by the moratorium.
“If we are going to help people who can’t pay rent because of the virus, then we should allow the courts to sort things out and then prohibit the courts from ordering eviction in cases where the virus is the cause of the default. Let the court system function normally for non COVID related cases.”
The IRPOA is not a party in the litigation against Pritzker. However, the association has said it supports the claims brought by the landlords involved in the court case.
On July 31, Will County Judge John Anderson sided almost completely with Pritzker against the landlords. Anderson ruled Pritzker’s powers amid a “public health emergency” are broad and barely limited by law, even if they infringe on constitutional rights.
In this instance, Anderson said the landlords’ ability to exercise their right to evict non-paying tenants “has not been removed,” merely “delayed because of a public health emergency.” He said such a delay is “under the circumstances, justified.”
The judge said it did not matter if landlords faced “economic devastation.”
In arguments before Anderson, lawyers from the Illinois Attorney General’s office, arguing for Pritzker, told the court the moratorium was only “temporary,” and would only last until the state could roll out a rental assistance program to help financially struggling tenants and landlords.
The state made rental assistance available in August. However, Pritzker extended the moratorium again.
The landlords are represented by attorneys James V. Noonan and Solomon Maman, of the firm of Noonan and Lieberman Ltd., of Chicago, and attorney Jeffrey Grant Brown, of Chicago.
Noonan said he was not surprised by Pritzker’s extension of the moratorium, as he said the Attorney General’s Office had warned such an extension was in the works.
He said he and the others representing the landlords would examine Pritzker’s moratorium extension, and “what impact, if any, it may have on the pending litigation.”
The landlords have appealed Judge Anderson's decision to the Illinois Third District Appellate Court in downstate Ottawa. Will County is included in the state's Third Appellate District.