District of Columbia v. Towers (2021)

Citation: District of Columbia v. Towers (2021)
Parent Document: District of Columbia v. Towers (2021)
Jurisdiction: DC (municipal)
Effective Date: 2021-05-13
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/4882760/district-of-columbia-v-towers/ ↗

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Eviction Filings During and After Local Eviction Moratoria, Eviction Lab,
Princeton University (Nov. 15, 2020), https://evictionlab.org/moratoria-and-filings/
https://perma.cc/M47M-7253.
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          Even assuming that the right of access is implicated by the filing
moratorium, it is not at all clear that legislation compromising the right of access to
the courts to regain possession of one’s property from a tenant is subject to
intermediate scrutiny. See generally Ronald D. Rotunda & John E. Nowak, 3
Treatise on Const. L. § 17.10 (May 2020) (“Where access to the judicial process is
not essential to the exercise of fundamental constitutional rights the state will be free
to allocate access to the judicial machinery on any system or classification which is
not totally arbitrary.”). In any event, there is a strong argument that the filing
moratorium survives intermediate scrutiny because, as discussed further below, it is
substantially related to one or more important governmental objectives, see Brown
v. United States, 979 A.2d 630, 641 (D.C. 2009), namely, ensuring people can retain
their housing, shelter in place, and avoid spreading the COVID-19 virus. Cf.
Baptiste, 490 F. Supp. 3d at 394 (“Preventing the spread of an epidemic is a
legitimate state interest.”).
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                       2. Danger of Irreparable Harm to Tenants

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