In plain terms: the order that suspended your business did not have to name you. An order that closed the plant that made your parts, kept your customers at home, closed your employees' children's schools, quarantined the travelers who filled your rooms, or closed the courthouse where your deals were recorded limited your commerce as surely as an order taped to your own door. The statute asks whether your operation was suspended because of orders "limiting commerce, travel, or group meetings." It does not ask who the order named. This page sets out six ways the orders crossed State lines and reached every function of every employer, with the instruments and the exhibits, and sets the Government's own words in court beside the Service's letters. The United States has told a federal appeals court that an order aimed at a third party can suspend your business. This page shows how often it did.
Commerce is interstate by nature, and so were the orders
"Commerce" is trade and the exchange of goods and services, and in the United States it is interstate and international by nature; an order that limits commerce anywhere in that system limits the commerce of every employer whose inputs, customers, workers, travelers, courts or carriers the order reached. The Suspension Clause reaches that limitation in terms: an operation is partially suspended when it is suspended "due to orders from an appropriate governmental authority limiting commerce, travel, or group meetings (for commercial, social, religious, or other purposes) due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)."1 The United States has told the Ninth Circuit the same thing in its own words, in the answering brief of the United States in Stenson Tamaddon, LLC v. IRS, No. 25-4217 (9th Cir. Jan. 30, 2026) ("Br. for Appellees"):
a business may be suspended 'due to' a government order addressing a third party (such as an order that suspends the operations of a supplier of the business)
Br. for Appellees at 41 & n.5
The Notice's own Q&A-12 applies the same logic to suppliers, and its reasoning does not stop there.2 Six mechanisms carried the orders across State lines and into every function of every employer in every quarter: supply chain and borders; workforce, schools and child care; travel, tourism and gatherings; courts, clerks and public offices; transit; and health care as a counterparty. This analysis states each mechanism with its instruments, dates and the function codes it reached. Counterparty orders are orders, under the statute's words and under Q&A-12's reasoning. Foreign governments' orders are treated only as the facts and circumstances in which the United States' own instruments limiting travel and commerce with those countries operated, never as orders of an appropriate governmental authority.
The function codes
The Library tags each instrument with the functions of a business it reached. Six codes recur in this analysis, and each mechanism below opens with the functions it reached:
- CB
- The customer base: the customers, patients or members a business serves and the payers who pay for them, and every order that kept them home, quarantined them or capped their numbers.
- WF
- Workforce availability: whether employees could lawfully come to work, given school and child-care closures, quarantine and isolation orders, transit rules, leave mandates and vaccination-status rules.
- SC
- Supply chain: the inputs a business buys, and every order that closed a supplier's plant, shut a border, funneled a flight or placed goods under federal allocation.
- OP
- Office and administration: the desks, filings, permits, recordings and in-person transactions a business runs on, including telework mandates and the closure of courts, clerks and public offices.
- HR
- Hiring and staffing: recruiting, screening, training, credentialing and licensing, and every order that closed a consulate, a licensing office or a testing center or removed an unvaccinated worker.
- MK
- Marketing and events: the trade shows, conventions, customer visits and gatherings through which a business finds and keeps its customers, and every order that cancelled or capped them.
Mechanism one: supply chain and borders
Functions reached: SC; also CB, MK, HR, OP.
The federal border regime ran without a day's interruption
From February 2, 2020 to November 8, 2021 the United States kept in force, without a day's interruption, federal orders limiting travel and commerce between every employer in the country and the countries that supply its inputs, buy its output and send it customers and workers. The entry proclamations barred the supplier's engineers, quality and installation personnel, the foreign buyer, the foreign exhibitor and attendee at every trade show, the foreign hire and intracompany transfer, and made international business travel unlawful or conditioned in every quarter until Proclamation 10294 revoked them effective November 8, 2021.3
| Instrument | Countries | In force |
|---|
| Proclamation 9984 | China | From February 2, 2020 |
| Proclamation 9992 | Iran | From March 2, 2020 |
| Proclamation 9993 | Schengen Area | From March 13, 2020 |
| Proclamation 9996 | United Kingdom and Ireland | From March 16, 2020 |
| Proclamations 10041 and 10042 | Brazil | From May 26, 2020 |
| Proclamation 10143 | Continues every one of the above and adds South Africa | From January 30, 2021 |
| Proclamation 10199 | India | From May 4, 2021 |
| Proclamation 10294 | Revokes the entry proclamations | Effective November 8, 2021 |
The Department of Homeland Security's land-border notifications prohibited non-essential travel from Canada and Mexico from 11:59 p.m. March 20, 2020 through November 8, 2021, renewed on the 21st to 24th of every month, and DHS named "sightseeing, recreation, gambling, or attending cultural events" as the travel it forbade, removing the Canadian and Mexican patrons of every border-region retailer, restaurant, hotel, dealer and clinic for twenty months and the cross-border crews, inspectors, technicians and workforce of every border State.4 The CDC's Title 42 orders suspended the introduction of covered persons from Canada and Mexico from March 20, 2020 through the third quarter of 2021 and beyond, reassessed on August 2, 2021 as "appropriate at this time for all covered noncitizens"; the pre-departure testing orders barred, from January 26, 2021 to June 12, 2022, the introduction of any aircraft passenger from any foreign country, citizens included, without a negative test or documentation of recovery; the DHS arrival restrictions funneled every flight from China, Iran, Europe, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Brazil to designated airports from February 2 to September 14, 2020.5 Proclamations 10014 and 10052 suspended the entry of most new immigrants (April 23, 2020 to February 24, 2021) and of H-1B, H-2B, L and J workers (June 24, 2020 to March 31, 2021), removing the seasonal, professional and intracompany hires of landscapers, resorts, seafood processors, software firms and multinational plants; the State Department suspended every routine visa appointment worldwide from March 20 to July 15, 2020 and resumed post by post.6
Federal allocation of the goods every reopening order required
The Defense Production Act orders (Executive Orders 13909, 13910, 13911 and 13917) placed federal priority and allocation over "all health and medical resources" and directed meat and poultry processors to "continue operations consistent with the guidance ... jointly issued by the CDC and OSHA," and none was revoked during the six quarters. The HHS scarce-materials designation made the accumulation of N95 respirators, masks, gloves, gowns, ventilators and disinfectants above reasonable demand a federal crime from March 25, 2020 to November 15, 2021, so that every dental practice, physician office, salon, restaurant, school and factory ordered by its State to operate under infection-prevention and exposure-control conditions requiring masks, gloves and sanitation bought those goods in a market under federal allocation. FEMA's export-allocation rule detained PPE exports from April 7, 2020 to June 30, 2021.7
The States closed the manufacturing base by order
The States that hold the nation's manufacturing base closed it by order in the spring of 2020: Michigan's Executive Order 2020-21 (March 23) and 2020-42 (April 9), with manufacturing resumed only on May 11 under Executive Order 2020-77's conditions; Pennsylvania's orders of March 19 closing every business "not life sustaining"; New York's Executive Orders 202.6 and 202.8 (100 percent in-person workforce reduction of every business not designated essential from March 22, with "Essential Manufacturing" defined by the Empire State Development guidance); New Jersey's Executive Orders 107 and 122; Washington's Proclamation 20-25; California's Executive Order N-33-20 and the Bay Area shelter orders; and the orders of Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana and Wisconsin.8 A distributor in Arizona, a dealer in Georgia or a contractor in Texas that bought vehicles, parts, appliances, machinery, packaging, steel, chemicals or furniture from a closed plant received nothing while it was closed and less than it ordered for months afterward, because of the order that closed it.
The CISA Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce guidance, "advisory in nature" by its own words, acquired force only through the State orders that adopted it, and every State closure order that defined the plants and stores allowed to operate did so by reference to it. An "essential" designation was therefore the premise of the conditions those orders imposed and never an exemption from them.9
The Government's own findings record the consequence
The Federal Reserve's Beige Book of April 15, 2020 recorded that "[s]ome other manufacturing industries, such as autos, mostly shut down" and that Districts "reported widespread mandatory closures" and "supply chain disruptions." The Federal Maritime Commission recorded blank sailings at "21 percent of all voyages in May 2020." The President found in Executive Order 14017 (February 24, 2021) that "[p]andemics and other biological threats" had exposed the fragility of the nation's supply chains. The White House 100-day review of June 8, 2021 found that the pandemic "created a global semiconductor chip shortage impacting automotive, industrial, and" other sectors, that vehicle plants lost production "due to a six-week industry shutdown," and that the world "depends on Taiwanese firms for 92 percent of leading-edge semiconductor production." Commerce solicited data on "the current semiconductor shortage" on September 24, 2021. The Beige Books of July 14 and September 8, 2021 recorded "shortages of materials and labor, delivery delays, and low inventories of many consumer goods" and the "ongoing microchip shortage." The CDC counted 4,913 infected meat-plant workers in 115 plants on April 27, 2020 and 16,233 in 239 facilities by May 31, 2020, and recorded that the Sioux Falls plant "began a phased closure" on April 12, 2020 "and did not reopen during the period of investigation." The Census Bureau found in the week ending July 18, 2021 that 38.8 percent of small businesses reported domestic supplier delays (manufacturing 64.6 percent; retail 59.8; construction 58.5; accommodation and food services 51.4) and 15.9 percent foreign supplier delays.10
The foreign orders as the circumstances of the federal instruments
The foreign orders are the circumstances in which those federal instruments operated, and nothing more. Canada barred discretionary entry from the United States to August 9, 2021 and imposed testing, ArriveCAN, hotel-stopover and quarantine rules thereafter; Ontario closed every business not on Schedule 2 from 11:59 p.m. March 24, 2020; Mexico suspended all "actividades no esenciales" to May 30, 2020 and released automotive, construction and mining only on June 1, 2020; the European Union admitted United States travelers on June 18, 2021 and removed them on August 30, 2021; England imposed fourteen-day isolation from June 8, 2020 and never placed the United States on a travel corridor; China suspended entry from March 28, 2020; Japan's fourth state of emergency ran July 12 to September 30, 2021; Malaysia's lockdown from June 1, 2021 capped manufacturing at 60 percent; Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City and southern-province lockdowns ran July 9-19 to September 30, 2021; Taiwan's nationwide Level 3 alert ran May 19 to July 26, 2021; the WTO counted eighty export-restricting countries by April 23, 2020; and the Congressional Research Service recorded that "more than 80 countries had closed their borders to arrivals from countries with infections, ordered businesses to close, instructed their populations to self-quarantine, and closed schools."11
Mechanism two: workforce, schools and child care
Functions reached: WF; also HR, OP.
No employer in the United States operated its functions in 2020 or 2021 with the workforce it had on March 12, 2020, and the reason is law.
Every State closed its schools by order
Every State closed its schools to in-person instruction by order between March 12 and March 23, 2020, forty-eight kept them closed through the end of the 2019-20 year, and at their peak the closures reached at least 55.1 million students in 124,000 schools. Michigan's Executive Order 2020-5 ordered that "all elementary school buildings and secondary school buildings in this state must close to students," and Executive Order 2020-35 closed them for the remainder of the year with willful violation a misdemeanor. Virginia's Executive Order 53 ordered the "[c]essation of all in-person instruction at K-12 schools, public and private, for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year." Texas's GA-08 provided that "schools shall temporarily close." Kansas's Executive Order 20-07 closed them "until May 29, 2020." The orders of Illinois, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Oregon, Minnesota, Colorado, Louisiana, South Carolina, North Carolina, North Dakota and California did the same.12
The States closed child care to everyone but the children of essential workers. New Jersey's Executive Order 110 closed every center not certified as an Emergency Child Care Center for "essential persons" from April 1, 2020; Oregon's Executive Order 20-19 closed licensed child care from March 23 except emergency care "in stable groups of 10 or fewer children" for essential personnel; Ohio reopened child care on May 31 only "requiring all employees to wear facial coverings."13 Congress ordered every employer under 500 employees, from April 1 to December 31, 2020, to pay leave to workers under quarantine or isolation orders, on a provider's advice, with symptoms, or caring for a child whose "school or place of care ... has been closed," and the Department of Labor's rule defined "quarantine or isolation order" to include stay-at-home orders.14
The fall 2020 remote and hybrid orders (New Jersey's Executive Order 175; Oregon's Executive Order 20-29; California's reopening framework of July 17, 2020, which placed 33 of 58 counties in remote instruction; Arizona's order of June 29, 2020 delaying in-person instruction to August 17) extended the parents' absence through the 2020-21 year in most States, and the winter closures of Kentucky (every public and private school closed to in-person instruction from November 23, 2020) and Michigan (high schools and colleges closed November 18 to December 20, 2020) renewed it.15
The legal duty to exclude exposed workers
State occupational-safety agencies converted the CDC's quarantine guidance into a legal duty to exclude exposed workers. Virginia's 16VAC25-220 bound "every employer, employee, and place of employment" from July 27, 2020 to exclude employees "known or suspected to be infected"; Oregon OSHA's OAR 437-001-0744 bound every Oregon workplace from November 16, 2020; Cal/OSHA's 8 C.C.R. § 3205 bound every California workplace from November 30, 2020; Washington's Proclamation 20-46 barred every employer from April 13, 2020 to June 28, 2021 from "failing to utilize all available options for alternative work assignments to protect high-risk employees ... including but not limited to telework"; New York's HERO Act took effect June 4, 2021.16 The OSHA Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard required paid medical removal, paid vaccination leave, daily screening, entry limits, distancing, barriers and ventilation in every setting where any employee provided healthcare or healthcare support services from June 21, 2021.17
The transit orders governed every commute: the MBTA's service reduction of March 17, 2020; WMATA's service cuts and station closures of March 16, 2020; New Jersey's Executive Order 125 capping NJ TRANSIT and every private carrier at "50% of the stated maximum capacity" with face coverings from April 13, 2020; the New York subway's first nightly closure in its history from May 6, 2020 to May 17, 2021; and, from February 1, 2021 through the whole of the third quarter of 2021, the CDC conveyance order and the TSA directives on every bus, subway, commuter train, taxi and ride-share.18
The 2021-22 school year opened under orders
In the 2021-22 school year the school and child-care masking, quarantine and exposure-control orders of eighteen States and the District had force of law: New Jersey's Executive Order 251 from August 9, "regardless of vaccination status"; Kentucky's Executive Order 2021-585 of August 10, reaching "all child care settings"; Connecticut's Executive Order 13A of August 5; Rhode Island's Executive Order 21-87 of August 19; New York's 10 NYCRR 2.60 of August 27; Illinois' Executive Orders 2021-18 and 2021-20; Pennsylvania's order of August 31, effective September 7, reaching every "child care provider licensed by the Department of Human Services"; California's K-12 guidance made binding July 12; and the orders of Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, the District and Virginia. Indiana's order of September 1 and Florida's rule of September 22 governed classroom quarantine. The counter-orders of Texas (GA-38, July 29) and Florida (Executive Order 21-175, July 30) and the eight-State mask-mandate bans, several enjoined inside the quarter, themselves attest to the regime they answered.19
The vaccination orders of the third quarter of 2021
In July, August and September 2021 the States, the President and federal agencies ordered the vaccination of health-care workers, school and child-care staff and public employees, with compliance dates inside the quarter.20
| Jurisdiction | Instrument | Who | Compliance date |
|---|
| California | State Public Health Officer order of August 5, 2021 | Health-care workers; congregate-setting workers | September 30, 2021; August 23, 2021 |
| New York | 10 NYCRR 2.61 ("Covered entities shall continuously require personnel to be fully vaccinated") | Hospital and nursing-home personnel; no test-out | First dose by September 27, 2021 |
| New Jersey | Executive Orders 252 and 253 | Health-care and congregate-care workers; school personnel | September 7, 2021; October 18, 2021 |
| Connecticut | Executive Orders 13B, 13D and 13G | Long-term-care staff; State, school and child-care employees | September 7, 2021; September 27, 2021 |
| Illinois | Executive Order 2021-20 (August 26, 2021) | Health-care workers and school personnel | First dose September 5, extended to September 19, 2021 |
| North Carolina | Executive Order 224 | Cabinet-agency workers | From September 1, 2021 |
| Washington | Proclamations 21-14 and 21-14.1 | Health-care, State, child-care, K-12 and higher-education workers; no test-out | October 18, 2021 |
| Rhode Island | 216-RICR-20-15-8, emergency regulation of August 17, 2021 | All workers in licensed health-care facilities | As the regulation provides |
| Maryland | MDH orders of August 18, 2021 | Hospital and nursing-home staff | From September 1, 2021 |
| New Mexico | Public health order of August 17, 2021, as amended September 15, 2021 | Hospital and congregate-care workers; school workers | As the order provides |
| Hawaii | Executive Order 21-05 | State and county employees | From August 16, 2021 |
| Oregon | Executive Order 21-29 | State employees | October 18, 2021 |
| Virginia | Executive Directive 18 | State employees | From September 1, 2021 |
| Massachusetts | Executive Order 595 | Executive-branch employees | As the order provides |
| United States | Department of Veterans Affairs Title 38 mandate of July 26, 2021 | VHA health-care personnel | As the mandate provides |
| United States | Executive Orders 14042 and 14043 of September 9, 2021 | Federal contractors; federal employees | As the orders and the Task Force guidance provide |
There were no government orders related to COVID-19 in effect during the quarter which could have fully or partially suspended your trade or business.
A quarter in which the law was removing unvaccinated workers from the health-care, school and public workforces of the most populous States is not a quarter in which no government orders were in effect. The sentence is the Service's form language on the suspension prong in Letters 105C issued since 2024, and for the third quarter of 2021 it describes a quarter that did not occur.21
The labor-market facts are the circumstances
Initial unemployment claims reached 6,648,000 in the week ending March 28, 2020, "the highest level ... in the history of the seasonally adjusted series"; unemployment reached 14.7 percent and payrolls fell by 20.5 million in April 2020; the Beige Book of September 8, 2021 recorded "extensive labor shortages that were constraining employment and, in many cases, impeding business activity," attributed in part to "childcare needs"; and the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in July 2021 "5.2 million persons reported that they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business due to the pandemic" and in September 2021 5.0 million, with 13.2 percent of the employed teleworking because of the pandemic and employment 5.0 million below its pre-pandemic level.22
Mechanism three: travel, tourism and gatherings
Functions reached: CB, MK; also WF, OP.
An order that quarantines the traveler limits the commerce of the business the traveler was going to visit, buy from, sell to, work for or testify in; an order that caps a gathering closes or caps every convention, trade show, banquet, performance and service in the jurisdiction; an order that stops ships or funnels flights limits the commerce of every port, hotel, provisioner and destination.
The traveler quarantines of eighteen States, the District and Chicago
Between March 21, 2020 and April 1, 2021 the traveler-quarantine regimes of at least eighteen States, the District and Chicago attached a fourteen-day quarantine to arrival from as many as forty States. Hawaii's Second Supplementary Proclamation quarantined every arriving passenger, fourteen days in a hotel room or residence from March 26, 2020 and ten days from December 17, 2020, violation a misdemeanor, with test and, from July 8, 2021, vaccination exceptions under Safe Travels, and the regime ran to March 25, 2022 (Ex. HI-003, Ex. HI-014, Ex. HI-018, Ex. HI-031, Ex. HI-055). Alaska's Health Mandate 010 reached "all persons entering the state of Alaska, whether resident, worker, or visitor" to February 14, 2021. Rhode Island's Executive Orders 20-10 and 20-14 quarantined every non-work arrival from any State and told employers with out-of-State employees to "use all means available to enable these employees to telecommute." Florida's Executive Order 20-82 quarantined arrivals from areas of substantial spread and directed law enforcement to report violators. Texas's GA-11 imposed DPS-supervised quarantine on air travelers from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and New Orleans with unannounced compliance visits, GA-12 placed troopers on the Louisiana line, and GA-20 continued the regime. Delaware's Seventh Modification provided that "[a]ny individual who enters Delaware from another state, and who is not merely passing through, must immediately self-quarantine for fourteen (14) days." Vermont's Addendum 7 imposed quarantine and suspended all lodging operations and online reservations. Maine's Executive Order 34 imposed quarantine, closed lodging from April 5 and made violation a Class E crime. Utah's Executive Order 2020-15 pushed a traveler declaration to every phone by Wireless Emergency Alert. New York's Executive Order 205 (June 24, 2020) provided that travelers from any State above 10 new cases per 100,000 or 10 percent positivity "will be required to quarantine for a period of 14 days," with a civil penalty up to $10,000, and its winter successors ran to April 1, 2021 for domestic travel and June 25, 2021 for international travel. Connecticut's Executive Orders 7III (mandatory from July 24, 2020; Travel Health Form; $1,000 penalties) and 9S (every State other than New York, New Jersey and Rhode Island, and every foreign country, from December 18, 2020) ran to March 19, 2021. Massachusetts' Order 45 (August 1, 2020; Massachusetts Travel Form; quarantine or 72-hour test; $500 per day) ran to March 22, 2021. Chicago's Emergency Travel Order (July 6, 2020) began with fifteen States, grew weekly and remained tiered until it became advisory on June 29, 2021 (Ex. MET-CHI-019). New Mexico's Executive Orders 2020-054 and 2020-063, the District's Mayor's Order 2020-081, New Hampshire's Emergency Order 72 and Pennsylvania's test-or-quarantine order for every entrant from November 20, 2020 completed the regime, and New York City's Emergency Executive Order 159 made every hotel and short-term rental refuse a room to any guest without the traveler form from November 3, 2020.23
The cruise orders removed an industry from commerce
The federal cruise orders removed an entire industry, its ports and its suppliers from commerce from March 14, 2020 through the third quarter of 2021: the No Sail Order and its three extensions to October 31, 2020, then the Framework for Conditional Sailing Order from October 30, 2020 to November 1, 2021 (extended to January 15, 2022), under which no passenger voyage sailed before the June 2021 test voyages.24
The gathering caps and the convention halls
Every State but South Dakota capped or banned group meetings by statewide order in March 2020; the caps were re-imposed in November and December 2020 in at least thirty States; the last statewide caps fell between March and June 2021 (New York June 15; New Jersey May and June; California June 15; Washington and Oregon June 30; Michigan June 22; Illinois June 11; Massachusetts May 29; Pennsylvania May 31); Hawaii re-tightened in August 2021 to ten indoors and twenty-five outdoors; and every convention center of consequence was closed or converted. The Javits Center's board recorded on April 22, 2020 that "[t]here have been no events since March 10th and there are no events scheduled through the end of June," beside the contracts converting the hall to a medical station and warehouse and a $33 million cancellation figure, and Maryland ordered that "Convention events are prohibited."25 The Library's meetings collection carries the gatherings themselves: the national trade shows, conventions, fairs, tournaments, services and recurring meetings of ordinary commerce that the organizers' own notices record as cancelled, converted or capped, each with the venue jurisdiction's orders in force on the event's dates and the organizer's stated action.
The federal gathering limits ran alongside: the "15 Days to Slow the Spread" guidelines (context only); the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force rule of July 29, 2021 requiring agency-head approval for any federally hosted event over fifty participants; the closure of the national parks, Hoover Dam, the Bureau of Land Management's developed recreation sites, the Army Corps recreation areas and the Smithsonian in 2020 and Yosemite's day-use reservation system, announced by the park for May 21 to September 30, 2021; the Department of Defense's stop-movement and conditions-based travel restrictions from March 13, 2020 through the third quarter of 2021; and OMB Memorandum M-21-15's confinement of federal official travel to mission-critical trips.26
Mechanism four: courts, clerks and public offices
Functions reached: OP; also CB and HR, and, for the industries that carry them, CL (closings, recorders and title) and DM (motor-vehicle offices, titles and registrations).
An order that closes a courthouse, bars a clerk from accepting a filing, suspends jury assemblies or halts possessory actions limits the commerce of every lender, landlord, title company, appraiser, dealer, contractor and law firm whose transactions depend on a filing, a hearing, a recording, a title or a permit.
The federal courts
The Supreme Court closed its building on March 12, 2020 and heard argument by telephone, and the Judicial Conference's finding of March 29, 2020 under CARES Act § 15002 ran through 2022. The Northern District of Illinois' chain runs from General Order 20-0012 (March 12, 2020) through the Tenth Amended order (jury trials suspended to April 5, 2021), General Order 21-0006 (vaccination or testing of courthouse workers from May 26, 2021; for courtroom participation from September 20), the Third Amended masking and exposure-control order (July 30, 2021) and General Order 21-0033 (September 20, 2021). The Northern District of California barred jury trials from March 16 to September 30, 2020 and closed its courthouses to public events on September 16, 2020. The Central District of California closed its courthouses on March 23, 2020 and required masking and exposure controls from June 1, 2020 to October 1, 2021. The District of New Jersey suspended in-person proceedings from November 25, 2020 to January 31, 2021, continued jury trials to June 1, 2021 and re-tightened on September 3 and 13, 2021. The District of Arizona suspended grand juries on March 16, 2020, postponed every jury trial on January 11, 2021 and re-tightened on September 7, 2021.27
The State courts and clerks
The Texas Supreme Court's emergency orders governed every civil and criminal proceeding in that State from March 13, 2020 through the end of 2021, barring residential eviction proceedings (March 19 to May 18, 2020) and jury proceedings for months at a time (to September 1, 2020; justice-court jury proceedings to February 1, 2021), with the Thirty-Eighth (June 1 to August 1, 2021) and Fortieth (August 1 to October 1, 2021) in force in the third quarter of 2021. New York's AO/68/20 postponed all non-essential court functions and suspended jury selection from 5:00 p.m. March 16, 2020, and AO/78/20 barred county clerks and courts from accepting any non-essential filing, paper or electronic, from March 22, 2020; county clerks record deeds and mortgages outside New York City. Arizona's Administrative Orders 2020-47 through 2020-197 required in-person proceedings to be "avoided to the greatest extent possible." Georgia's Statewide Judicial Emergency of March 14, 2020 suspended every deadline in every case through eleven extensions to June 30, 2021. Washington suspended all civil jury trials on April 13, 2020. California's Judicial Council Emergency Rules 1 and 2 stayed unlawful detainer and judicial foreclosure from April 6 to September 1, 2020.28
The federal foreclosure and eviction moratoria ran to the last day of the last quarter
The coordinated federal moratoria suspended the foreclosure function of every federally connected servicer from March 18, 2020 through July 31, 2021 and the eviction function through September 30, 2021, the last day of the last claimable quarter: the CARES Act's §§ 4022 and 4024; FHFA's extensions of May 14, June 17, August 27 and December 2, 2020 and January 19, February 9, February 25 and June 24, 2021, with REO evictions barred to September 30, 2021 on July 30; HUD's Mortgagee Letters 2020-04 through 2021-15; VA's Circulars 26-20-7 through 26-21-20 ("Through September 30, 2021, foreclosure-related evictions are not to be initiated or completed"); USDA Rural Development's moratoria; the CDC's eviction moratorium chain from September 4, 2020 to July 31, 2021, bridged by statute in January 2021 and renewed August 3 to 26, 2021 for counties of substantial or high transmission, with criminal fines up to $500,000 per event; the CFPB's loss-mitigation rule of July 1, 2020 and its Regulation X rule barring foreclosure referrals without procedural safeguards from August 31 to December 31, 2021; and the student-loan payment pause from August 8, 2020 to January 31, 2022.29
The State layer ran beside it in every region: New Jersey's Executive Order 106 (March 19, 2020 to January 1, 2022); Washington's Proclamation 20-19 (March 18, 2020 to June 30, 2021) and 21-09 (July 1 to September 30, 2021); Minnesota's Executive Order 20-14 with its statutory phase-out from June 30, 2021; Connecticut's Executive Orders 7X (April 10, 2020 to June 30, 2021) and 10A; Illinois' Executive Order 2020-30, re-issued monthly to October 3, 2021, with non-residential eviction enforcement also stopped; Massachusetts' ch. 65 of 2020 (April 20 to October 17, 2020; small-business commercial premises included); California's AB 3088 and AB 832 (rent accrued April 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021); New York's CEEFPA, ch. 104 of 2021 (to August 31) and ch. 417 of 2021 (September 2 to January 15, 2022).30
The remote-notarization orders prove the premise
The remote-notarization orders (New York's Executive Order 202.7 of March 19, 2020; Illinois' Executive Order 2020-14; Connecticut's Executive Order 7Q; Georgia's Executive Order 03.31.20.01; New Jersey's P.L. 2020, c. 26; Pennsylvania's Act 15; Massachusetts' ch. 71 of 2020 and ch. 20 of 2021 extending the regime to December 15, 2021) prove the premise: governors and legislatures authorized audio-video execution of deeds, powers of attorney, wills and loan documents precisely because in-person execution was an activity their own orders limited.31
The federal public offices closed with the rest
USCIS closed its field offices, asylum offices and Application Support Centers from March 18 to June 3, 2020 and reopened under masks, screening and reduced appointments; the State Department suspended consular services; USDA Service Centers went to phone appointments from March 23, 2020; the federal buildings operated under OMB Memorandum M-20-16 (customers "encourage[d] ... to delay transactions which are not time-critical"), M-20-23, Executive Order 13991 and M-21-15 (25 percent occupancy; visitors minimized) and the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force rules of July 29, 2021 (visitor vaccination-status disclosure); DHS permitted remote Form I-9 inspection for "employers and workplaces that are operating remotely" from March 20, 2020 to July 31, 2023; the Social Security Administration closed its field offices from March 17, 2020 to April 7, 2022; and the House of Representatives voted by proxy and held remote committee proceedings under H.Res. 965 from May 20, 2020 to January 3, 2023.32
The motor-vehicle offices closed in every State: California closed every field office from March 27, 2020 ("to limit the need for in-person transactions at Department of Motor Vehicle offices"); Illinois' Secretary of State closed twice; New Jersey's Motor Vehicle Commission and every Pennsylvania license center closed; walk-in service resumed between May 26, 2020 (Ohio) and July 19-20, 2021 (the District).33
Mechanism five: transit
Functions reached: WF; also CB, OP.
From February 1, 2021 through the whole of the third quarter of 2021 and to April 18, 2022, a federal order in force on every day, enforced by criminal fines and by civil penalty against every operator, governed every commute by bus, subway, commuter rail, taxi and ride-share and every business flight in the United States. The order's words are these:
Persons must wear masks over the mouth and nose when traveling on conveyances into and within the United States.
A person must also wear a mask while at any transportation hub.
Operators "must require all persons onboard to wear masks for the duration of travel."
86 Fed. Reg. 8025 (Feb. 3, 2021)
The order is an occupational-health and airborne-transmission control in the statute's sense: it fixed a condition of every conveyance's operation and imposed on every operator the duties of notice, refusal of boarding and removal of the non-compliant passenger.34 The TSA's security directives required every transit agency, railroad, bus company, airline and airport to give notice that "Federal law requires wearing a mask," to refuse boarding and to remove violators, from February 1, 2021 (the original directives), May 12 to September 13, 2021 (SD 1582/84-21-01A, "including those already vaccinated") and September 14, 2021 to January 18, 2022 (SD 1582/84-21-01B). The Federal Railroad Administration's Emergency Order No. 32 bound every railroad and rail contractor in every yard, shop and terminal from March 1, 2021 with civil penalties of up to $118,826 a day. The Coast Guard's MSIB 02-21, a bulletin implementing the CDC order and cited as such, announced its application to every commercial vessel and sea port and the Captain of the Port orders that would follow non-compliance.35 In 2020 the transit agencies cut service under emergency declarations, New Jersey capped every train and bus at half capacity by executive order, and the New York subway closed nightly for the first time in its history. Every employee who commuted by public conveyance, every customer who arrived by transit or air, and every business trip in the country operated under those orders.
There were no government orders related to COVID-19 in effect during the quarter which could have fully or partially suspended your trade or business.
For the third quarter of 2021 the sentence cannot be squared with 86 Fed. Reg. 8025. A federal order published in the Federal Register, in force on every day of the quarter, enforced by criminal penalty against every passenger and by civil penalty against every operator, and implemented by security directives that every carrier in the country was bound to post, is a government order related to COVID-19 in effect during the quarter.36
Mechanism six: health care as a counterparty
Functions reached: WF, HR, SC, CB, OP.
The federal health-care orders reached every employer, not only providers: as the employer of workers who needed testing, care, isolation or vaccination; as the buyer of PPE in an allocated market; as a vendor, staffing agency, therapist, contractor, chaplain, barber or family member whose entry into every hospital and nursing home was screened, conditioned or refused; and, for the twenty-seven industries' health-care members, as the direct addressee of the OSHA Healthcare Emergency Temporary Standard, the CMS rules and the State health-care-worker mandates.
CMS closed nursing homes to "all visitors and non-essential healthcare personnel" on March 13, 2020 and told hospitals to screen every entrant. Its elective-procedure recommendations of March 18 and April 7, 2020 were made binding by every State's elective-procedure order. CMS-5531-IFC made every nursing home a weekly federal reporter from May 8, 2020. CMS-3401-IFC required every nursing home from September 2, 2020 to "test residents and facility staff, including individuals providing services under arrangement and volunteers," as often as twice weekly, so that staffing agencies, hospice and home-health providers, therapists and in-facility service providers were tested as "individuals providing services under arrangement." QSO-20-39-NH replaced the March visitation closure with a conditioned framework and, as revised April 27, 2021, required screening of all who enter and "denial of entry of those with signs or symptoms or those who have had close contact with someone with COVID-19 infection in the prior 14 days (regardless of the visitor's vaccination status)" through the third quarter of 2021. CMS-3414-IFC required every nursing home from May 21, 2021 to run a vaccination education, offering and reporting program for residents and all regular on-site staff and contractors. The § 1135 waivers changed the conditions of participation of every hospital, nursing facility, home health agency and practice from March 1, 2020 to May 11, 2023. HHS OCR's telehealth enforcement discretion from March 17, 2020 made every remote visit a compelled substitute for in-person care.37
The State health-care-worker mandates of August and September 2021 reached the workforce of every hospital, nursing home, home-care agency, dental and physician practice and of every staffing agency that placed workers in them; the Department of Veterans Affairs' mandate of July 26, 2021 reached "volunteers and contractors who work in VHA facilities" at 1,200 sites of care.38 The FFCRA's quarantine-order and provider-advice leave and the State workplace exclusion standards reached every employee tested, isolated or quarantined on a provider's or health department's direction.39
The counterparty orders are orders
The statute asks whether the operation of the trade or business was partially suspended because of orders limiting commerce, travel or group meetings. An order that closed a supplier's plant limited the commerce of the plant's customers; an order that confined the customer base at home limited the commerce of the businesses the customers would have patronized; an order that closed the schools removed the parents from every workforce; an order that quarantined the traveler limited the commerce of every destination; an order that closed the courthouse suspended the transactions of every lender, landlord and lawyer; an order that placed every commuter under airborne-transmission controls conditioned every commute. Each is an order "limiting commerce, travel, or group meetings" in the statute's own words; the United States has represented that an order "addressing a third party" suspends the business it reaches; and Q&A-12's reasoning, which finds an auto-parts manufacturer suspended "due to the governmental order that suspended operations of its supplier," is the statute's causation logic and does not stop at suppliers.40 "Due to" means "because of," and Tri-State Memorial Hospital v. United States, No. 2:25-cv-0181-TOR, ECF No. 38 (E.D. Wash. May 28, 2026) ("Tri-State"), holds that it requires but-for causation and that the United States' "proximate, independent and sufficient cause" formulation "improperly adds words into the statute."41 The twenty-seven industry analyses set out the counterparty orders for each industry by function code.
The customer sentence
The orders affected the employer's customers, not the employer (Q&A-13).
The Notice's own words answer the sentence. Q&A-10 lists the shelter-in-place proclamation as a qualifying order; Q&A-12 treats an order on a supplier, a third party, as a ground of suspension; and Q&A-13's customer exclusion, which first appeared on March 1, 2021, cannot be reconciled with either. The United States told the Ninth Circuit that "a business may be suspended 'due to' a government order addressing a third party," and told the District Court that the Notice "lacks the force of law."42 A customer who is forbidden to come is not a customer who chose not to come, and an order that emptied the premises by forbidding the public to enter them suspended the operation as surely as an order that locked the door.
The supplier sentence
The supplier was not itself closed by order; supply-chain effects are too attenuated (AM 2023-005).
The statute says nothing of the source, the addressee or the subject of the order. Where an order closed a supplier's plant, placed its output under Defense Production Act allocation, barred its exports, closed the border to its inputs or placed under airborne-transmission controls every port and rail yard through which they moved, and the employer's production, sales or service function was delayed because of it, the function was suspended because of the order. "Attenuated" is a proximate-cause word, and Tri-State held that adding proximate-cause words to "due to" "improperly adds words into the statute." The Chief Counsel memorandum the sentence rests on, AM 2023-005, says of itself that it "may not be used or cited as precedent"; it converts Q&A-12 into "a narrow, limited exception," adds a requirement that the order "appl[y] to the employer's operations," adds an alternate-supplier element and requires the employer to possess the supplier's order, and none of those words is in the statute or in Q&A-12. The United States told the Ninth Circuit that the supplier rule "never even mentions a 'physical[ ] clos[ure]' order against the supplier." A memorandum that may not be cited as precedent, adding elements the statute does not contain to a rule the United States has described in court without them, is not a ground on which any claim can be decided.43