A Baltimore ordinance pitched as a way to keep city neighborhoods cleaner will wind up costing Baltimore taxpayers $11 million after federal courts ruled it violated the constitutional rights of evicted renters.

The Brandon Scott administration has agreed to end a class-action lawsuit by paying $11 million into a fund for tenants whose personal possessions were taken or damaged a result of the city’s “abandonment law.”

The law allowed landlords to lock out evicted renters and keep their clothes, furniture and other items. It was found to violate the 5th and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution two years ago.

As a preliminary step in the settlement, each of the estimated 4,000 people who are part of a lawsuit will be given $800 for lost, damaged or stolen property during the eviction process.

If a class member claims damages of more than $800, they will be able to submit a claim that could potentially result in an award of up to $30,000.

The settlement, set to go before the Board of Estimates for approval next week, closes a chapter of legislative history viewed as a mechanism of cruelty by tenant rights activists.

Violation of Rights

Back in 2007, in an effort to lower the amount of blowing and moldering trash on city streets, the City Council passed an eviction law that prohibited landlords from dumping evicted tenants’ belongings on sidewalks and streets.

The ordinance deemed all property left behind by a tenant “abandoned.”

Landlords had the immediate right to take possession of all belongings – and to keep, sell or otherwise dispose of the items as they saw fit. Tenants had no way to reclaim their property.

In Washington, D.C., and in dozens of other cities and states, evicted tenants had a reclamation period to recover their property. But that never happened in Baltimore.

Seventeen years later, in Todman v. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore (2024), the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the abandonment law as unconstitutional. The court ruled that it violated the due-process rights of Baltimore renters granted under the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of a West Baltimore couple whose possessions, including valuable jewelry and a family member’s ashes, were taken without their notice while they were at work.

The city was ordered to pay Marshall and Tiffany Todman $186,000 in damages and nearly $844,000 in attorneys’ fees in the landmark case.

But despite that ruling, the city left the abandonment ordinance in place.

Class-Action Lawsuit

In 2022, Iesha and Embria Henriques filed a action-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Maryland representing all current and former tenants that sustained “a temporary or permanent loss” of their personal belongings because of the abandonment law.

After two years of fighting the lawsuit, the city law department has agreed to settle the case for $11 million, plus $500,000 in administrative costs, to avoid “the unpredictable nature of” a jury trial.

Once the BOE approves the agreement, a list of all members of the class action lawsuit – currently believed to be about 4,000 – will be compiled. A website will be created to post important settlement documents and permit class members to review and submit their claims electronically.

A year ago, Baltimore’s abandonment ordinance was superseded by a state law requiring Maryland landlords to provide at least six days’ notice before eviction, making the city’s unconstitutional provisions moot.

But under pressure from property owner groups, a provision prohibiting landlords from taking possession of tenants’ belongings was removed from the final version of the state law.

West Baltimore Councilman James Torrence has introduced a bill calling for a 14-day advance notice to an eviction and, more controversially, require a landlord to retain a tenant’s belongings free of charge for up to 10 days.

Torrence says Bill 25-0087, the Tenant Possessions Recovery Act, has the support of Mayor Brandon Scott. However, it has not yet been voted out of his Housing and Economic Development Committee.

Baltimore County Evictions

At recent hearings in Baltimore and Baltimore County, which has also has an abandonment law, landlords and lobbyists representing them argued that imposing a waiting period to allow an evicted tenant to remove possessions would pose an undue hardship.

Tenant advocates said the practice of seizing evictees’ possessions worsens the problems of financial hardship and homelessness.

Baltimore County is also facing a legal challenge for giving landlords the right to take an evicted person’s possessions.

In June, Maryland Legal Aid sued the county on behalf of Sherry L. Gudger, a single mother living with multiple sclerosis who was evicted from her Halethorpe apartment.

Gudger had tried to remove the family’s possessions, but didn’t manage to get all of them. When she returned from walking her eight-year-old son to school on the first day of classes last August, her remaining possessions were gone.

Prior Brew Coverage

• Bill would change law that allows Baltimore landlords to lock out evicted tenants and keep their possessions (8/25/26)

• Baltimore County’s eviction law, like Baltimore’s, is unconstitutional, advocates say (9/3/26)

• Baltimore Renters United spreads the word on the street (5/27/26)