COVID and Contract: In the News and on the Blog

Next week, we will be hosting a virtual symposium on COVID and contracts, with scholars from around the country sharing their insights on what happens when you add a pandemic to existing legal doctrine and stir.  Stay tuned.

To prime the pump, we provide two bits of COVID and contracts in the news.

First, just a link to this remarkable website, a COVID coverage litigation tracker, maintained by Tom Baker at the University of Pennsylvania (h/t Chaim Saiman).   

Second, we have this link to the CDC’s order barring evictions for the remainder of the calendar year (h/t Mark Scarberry).   The order creates a moratorium on evictions but does not otherwise suspend tenants’ obligations.  So once the moratorium ends, tenants will need to pay the rent they owe or face eviction a few months hence.  So a moratorium is not a panacea.  Other relief would have to come from local or federal legislative bodies.

You may be wondering, since when does the CDC have jurisdiction over housing?  The answer is that the CDC justifies its order as a public health measure, since evicted people would likely move in with others, making social distancing more difficult.