Though he always paid his $505 rent on time, his landlords said in an email to The New York Times that he was a hoarder who allowed his unit to devolve into unsanitary conditions. They needed to evict him for his health and safety and that of his neighbors. He got 60 days’ notice and a month’s free rent. The court approved the eviction in early February, weeks before anyone realized how the coronavirus would grip the country.

Since then, eviction court proceedings have been suspended statewide in 27 states, and numerous local jurisdictions have acted to do so on their own, according to a list compiled by Emily A. Benfer, a visiting law professor at Columbia Law School. But only 13 states have banned the enforcement of evictions statewide, addressing an important loophole.

Six days after the presiding judge in Jackson County issued an order that suspended most court proceedings, a court deputy showed up at an older woman’s home on March 18 to evict her. It turned out that while the judge’s order prevented pending cases from proceeding, it did not stop cases that already had been decided.

Ms. Raghuveer, the director of K.C. Tenants, spoke by phone with the deputy enforcing the eviction, and he told her, “The judge has signed off on the eviction, and we need to proceed with it,” according to a recording of the conversation provided by Ms. Raghuveer.