Cancel rent? —> Yes, the State has the constitutional power to enact legislation that abrogates existing landlord-tenant lease agreements to “cancel rent” for purpose of preserving the public health and safety of Pennsylvanians amid a deadly pandemic, like minimizing evictions...

(2) The Contracts Clause of the PA Constitution prohibits the State from impairing existing contracts. However, a rare and little known 1939 PA Sup. Ct. case ruled that the Clause cannot override State regulations necessary to secure the public health and safety.

(3) That case is Zeuger Milk Co. v. Pgh Sch. Dist. (Pa. 1939), where Justice Schaffer ruled regulations may impair existing contracts if necessary for “the good of the public,” notwithstanding the law destroying some existing contract rights.

(4) The pandemic is one of those rare public health emergencies when state police power exceptions to the Contracts Clause apply. A tenants inability to pay rent risks eviction. Eviction risks public health threats due to COVID-19. The virus risks death...

(5) The State has a constitutional obligation (and the sovereign right) to protect the lives, health, morals, comfort and general welfare of the people...

(6) Thus, a State regulation that would modify, cancel, suspend or relieve existing rent payment contracts is probably constitutional, as the basis of the law is to minimize eviction that leads to virus infections, deters deaths, and preserves the public health and safety.

(7) Such regs would likely still supplement some reimbursements for landlords with state and federal aid to compensate some economic loss, especially the small ma & pop landlords. But at its core, the legal precedent suggests impairing existing lease contracts is constitutional.