Landlord, Constable Sue Boston Over Its Eviction Moratorium

A landlord and a constable are challenging Boston’s eviction moratorium in Housing Court, taking a preliminary injunction request before a judge next week.

Mattapan landlord Janet Avila and constable David Boudreau earlier this week filed a lawsuit over the ban acting Mayor Kim Janey enacted in September. The moratorium was put in place a week after the federal eviction ban expired and has no end date. A preliminary injunction hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday in Boston.

The suit also names leaders of the Boston Public Health Commission as defendants. The lawsuit was first reported by the Boston Globe.

“The fact that the Boston moratorium is indefinite is kind of secondary to the fact that it exists at all,” attorney Mitchell Matorin, representing the defendants, told Bisnow Friday. “It wouldn’t be any less violative of the Massachusetts constitution and it wouldn’t be any more supported by the legal authorities that the Boston commission tried to rely on.”

Attorney Jordana Roubicek Greenman, also representing the plaintiffs, didn't respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for Janey's office declined to comment on pending litigation in a Friday email.

Avila was given a $29K judgment in her favor on Aug. 31 in an eviction for nonpayment of rent case that began in 2019, Housing Court records show. That judgment was handed down the same day Janey announced the Boston moratorium. The ban has cost constable Boudreau $10K a month in income and he risks foreclosure of his own home, the suit states.

The complaint appears to be the first legal challenge to the ban that came down during the Boston market’s busiest move-in day and affected landlords “in a very visceral and very real way,” Boston Pads CEO Demetrios Salpoglou told Bisnow at the time of the ban. Some smaller landlords have been forced to sell their properties over lost income during the federal eviction moratorium, according to the Small Property Owners Association.