Evictions slowly resume in Harris County

Courts pick up dockets with cases interrupted by emergency order

On her first day back overseeing evictions, Justice of the Peace Jo Ann Delgado presided over a court blocked off by crime scene tape.

Her court, Justice of the Peace Court Precinct 2, Place 1, was nearly empty. The only three people there, aside from court staff, were on either side of the case she had come in to decide: a property manager and her attorney and the tenant who had an eviction filed on him. Delgado purposely scheduled cases 20 minutes apart, but all the others slated for June 1 had been dismissed.

“Please bear with us as we proceed in our in-person hearings that have resumed as of today,” she said before asking the plaintiff ’s attorney to present his case.

The Texas Supreme Court lifted an eviction moratorium on May 19 that was put in place due to the novel coronavirus. Harris County courts are slowly picking up their eviction dockets, starting with cases interrupted by the March 19 emergency order to suspend them. Some courts have yet to resume; others are trying to teleconference hearings.

Before anyone was allowed into Delgado’s courthouse, they had to answer screening questions: Did they test positive for COVID-19? Were they waiting on a test? Had they been in contact in the last 14 days with anyone who tested positive for COVID-19? If the answers were all “no,” they had their temperature checked before going inside.

Other justice of the peace court proceedings are still delayed. Delgado had heard a report — incorrect — that jury trials were set to resume in June. They’re not restarting for a month. Where would they even put the jurors? she wondered. There’s no way to do it at a social distance.

The tenant up for eviction at 8:20 a.m., Carter Donte Lamar, had not paid his full $775 rent since March — before the Texas Supreme Court put eviction cases on hold. The monthly missed payments added up. By the time he made it to court, he owed $2,955 in rent. The lawyer for the complex, in a gray suit and a blue mask, asked for $1,851.21 added on for attorney’s fees.

“Before the corona, I ain’t never was late,” said Lamar, who, like the majority of tenants getting evicted, had come to court without a lawyer. He spoke rapidly through his N95 mask about how he’d tried to get disability and now had unemployment and a stimulus check and could pay up if the apartment would let him.

But there were other lease violations, said his apartment’s property manager in a voice muffled by a pink cloth face mask: Lamar had approached an underage female visitor to the complex (he denied trying to hit on her) and had people not on his lease living in the apartment.

“I had some people come there because they were pushed out of their residence,” he said. Lamar’s place had been nearly empty: His wife, he said, left him and took the furniture. “I said well, since I got a place and y’all don’t got nowhere to go in this corona, y’all can live in my living room. And they agreed to pay me money when the stimulus check came.” (No one, he said, ended up paying him).That, Delgado explained, was subletting, and illegal under his lease. And that, plus the late rent, meant the landlord could decide whether to work something out — or not. They chose not to.

Lamar’s landlord won the case. Delgado told him he owed $2,955 in rent, plus $880 in attorney’s fees: $3,835 total. He has until June 10 to appeal the case or leave before a constable comes to remove him.

“I just don’t want an eviction on my record,” he said. “I wanted to wait till the end of corona.”