We’re not entirely sure if this is “for real” or just an elaborate tongue-in-cheek spoof, but hey, there’s a website (“Give No Quarter!” and an invitation to “Become a Third Amendment lawyer”), a blog (“The Runt Piglet Squeals!”*), and the brief seems signed by an honest-to-goodness real lawyer and sure looks like it has a genuine CM/ECF stamp on the top, so we’re going to take it at face value.
[*The Third Amendment has been called the “runt piglet” of the Bill of Rights: short, overlooked, the butt of jokes.]
The Third Amendment Lawyers Association (ÞALA) [yes, that’s a thorn, not a “P” or a typo.] filed a short brief in the pending challenge by the Alabama Association of Realtors to the CDC’s eviction moratorium. Thanks to our colleague — a fellow Third Amendment admirer — for passing the brief along.
As you may (or more likely may not) recall, the Third Amendment provides:
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
The brief argues the moratorium violates (no surprise) the Third Amendment. Br. at 4 (“The Moratorium prohibits eviction by Owners of Soldiers.”) Why? The text of the amendment, that’s why! To wit:
- It’s peacetime (“For purposes of the Third Amendment, the distinction between “time of peace” and “time of war” requires a formal declaration of war by Congress.”),
- Even if it is wartime, the moratorium was not adopted as “prescribed by law” (“Assuming, arguendo, that the existence of a current AUMF constitutes a ‘time of war’, the Moratorium was not propounded in a manner prescribed by law, as required by the Third Amendment. Prescription by law requires legislative action.”).
- Residences are houses (yeah, but as Steve Silva has pointed out, so is IHOP).
- Non-rent paying tenants are being “quartered” in said houses (“The use of a house by a soldier for more than 24 hours may be construed as “quartering”. Contrast Estate of Bennett v. Wainwright, No. 06-28-P-S, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 39631, at *20 (D. Me. May 30, 2007) (finding that use by police for less than 24 hours was not quartering).”).
- The moratorium doesn’t exclude soldiers (“It not only does not carve out soldiers, it does not mention them.”).
That’ll do pig. Follow along. One never knows, we suppose.