Whether a municipal law challenged under the Contracts Clause as impermissibly impairing private contracts is subject to variable scrutiny based on the severity of the contractual impairment

QUESTIONS PRESENTED In March 2020, the City of Los Angeles adopted its COVID-19 eviction moratorium, forcing landlords to furnish housing to defaulting tenants impacted by the pandemic, and authorizing tenants to withhold payment of their monthly rents for up to 12 months following the expiration of the “local emergency.” While the moratorium does not, on its face, eliminate tenants’ contractual obligation to pay back rent in the future, that is the inevitable outcome. Both the district court and Ninth Circuit applied a version of rational basis to uphold the eviction moratorium in the face of Petitioner’s Contracts Clause claim, deferring to the City’s determination of reasonableness and giving no effect to this Court’s precedent that the “severity of the impairment measures the height of the hurdle the state legislation must clear,” in that “[m]inimal alteration of contractual obligations may end the inquiry at the first stage,” while “[s]evere impairment . . . will push the inquiry to a careful examination of the nature and purpose of the state legislation.” Allied Structural Steel Co. v. Spannaus, 438 U.S. 234, 245 (1978); see also Energy Reserves Grp., Inc. v. Kansas Power & Light Co., 459 U.S. 400, 411 (1983) (“The severity of the impairment is said to increase the level of scrutiny to which the legislation will be subjected.”). The questions presented include: 1. Whether a municipal law challenged under the Contracts Clause as impermissibly impairing private contracts is subject to variable scrutiny based on the severity of the contractual impairment. il 2. Whether the Ninth Circuit erred by deferring to the City’s determination of “reasonableness” irrespective of the severity of the eviction moratorium’s impact on existing leasehold agreements.