Federal judge tosses Mississippi law on evictions

JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge has declared that a Mississippi law allowing landlords to seize tenants’ belongings during the eviction process is unconstitutional.

In his Tuesday order, U.S. District Judge Michael Mills called the Mississippi law “unpredictable and absurd” and said it goes further than eviction statutes in any other state in the U.S.

Under current law, “Mississippi tenants who overstay their lease may be confronted with the loss of virtually everything they own, even cherished belongings such as family photos and diplomas which have no discernable economic value to the lessor,” Mills wrote.

Mills was tasked with reviewing Mississippi’s law after Columbus resident Samantha Conner filed a lawsuit against an apartment rental company, the apartment’s owner and manager, and the Lowndes County constable last year. She was aided by a low-income housing clinic at the University of Mississippi School of Law.

When she was evicted in 2019, Conner said, her landlord changed the locks on her apartment and refused to let her take any of her belongings still inside, including her computer and hard drive needed for her work as a paralegal, keepsakes from when her son was a baby, family photographs and personal records.

Many of her personal items were later discarded by her landlord.

Mills said these mean-spirited actions were “encouraged by Mississippi eviction statutes, which engage in the legal fiction that a plaintiff who fails to timely vacate her apartment, as required by an eviction order, has irrevocably ‘abandoned’ her property.”

Mills’ order will be stayed pending an appeal.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s Chief of Staff Michelle Williams said Friday that the office was reviewing the order and evaluating its next steps.