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Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 850318.pdf

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Wash. Court of Appeals published opinion — 850318.pdf
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Washington (state)
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pandemic.

Therefore, by placing Section 4024 within Title IV, Congress plainly

intended that section to be interpreted in a manner that would lead to greater

economic stabilization in the relevant economic sector. The economic sector to

be stabilized by Section 4024 was rental housing and the potential for the

economic disruption of the pandemic to interfere with a tenant’s ability to make

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For the current opinion, go to https://www.lexisnexis.com/clients/wareports/.
No. 85031-8-I/13

rental payments. This reinforces the interpretation that, in enacting Section

4024, Congress was concerned only with the instability created in the rental

housing sector by a tenant’s nonpayment of rent due to the pandemic.

3

The Amicus suggests a much broader interpretation of Section 4024,

offering that, because Congress did not specify an eviction basis in the notice to

vacate protections set forth in subsection (c), Congress purportedly intended that

those protections be interpreted as applying to any and all notices to vacate in

covered dwellings. The argument for this broad interpretation, however, is

unpersuasive.

As set forth above, “we ‘construe a statute so that all the language used is

given effect, with no portion rendered meaningless or superfluous.’” Linville, 11

Wn. App. 2d at 321 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Swanson, 193

Wn. App. at 810). Indeed, “‘[c]ommon sense informs our analysis, as we avoid

absurd results in statutory interpretation.’” Linville, 11 Wn. App. 2d at 321

(quoting Alvarado, 164 Wn.2d at 562). “We avoid an interpretation that results in

unlikely or strained consequences.” Swanson, 193 Wn. App. at 811 (citing

Broughton Lumber Co. v. BNSF Ry., 174 Wn.2d 619, 635, 278 P.3d 173 (2012)).