The Plaintiff owned a series of properties collectively referred to as Moxley Farm, for which he had agreement to sell the land to the Ahmadiyya Movement of Islam, Inc., a corporation representing the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community (AMC). The AMC, founded in 1889, includes approximately 15,000 members and 45 mosques in the United States. The AMC planned to use the property to construct a mosque, as a residence for its imam and groundskeepr, and for a three-day religious event – Jalsa Salana. The Plaintiff, who claimed that the property would have remained largely bucolic since only 6.7% of the property would be used for the aforementioned purposes 362 days per year, and an additional 26.7% would be used only three days per year when temporary tents would be erected during the annual religious event, filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the sale of his property to AMC was blocked by government officials and private citizens motivated by anti-Muslim hostility in violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act.
Initially, places of worship and recreational facilities were permitted in an agricultural district subject to a special use permit, but two days after the AMC publicly disclosed its intention to build a mosque on the land, an amendment to the zoning ordinance was introduced to prohibit places of worship in the agricultural district. Several weeks later, while the proposed amendment was pending, AMC applied for the special exception. A staff report concluded that the proposed uses were consistent with the policies and goals of the agricultural designation of the plan. A month following the filing of the application, several of the private defendants allegedly held a secret meeting to begin discussing strategies to keep the AMC from building the mosque. The private defendants set up internet sites, hired experts and made statements clearly indicating an intent to keep AMC out of the municipality in both newspapers and blogs. One government defendant was also found to have been quoted at length expressing his concerns with the AMC moving in.
The zoning board of appeals denied the application for a special exception concluding that the AMC’s proposed use of the land would be more appropriately located on smaller country roads, but noted that smaller country roads “are not suitable for the type of traffic the AMC was proposing. The Board also cited increased traffic and the fact that public sewer and water was not available, as well as concerns over the impact on fire, ambulance and rescue services. The Plaintiff claimed that the Board did not consider any less restrictive means to achieve its interests. As a result of the denial, AMC terminated its contract for sale with the Plaintiff.
The zoning amendment preventing future houses of worship on the land was enacted thereafter. Plaintiff then filed a complaint against the government and private defendants, alleging among other things, a violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). On a motion to dismiss, with respect to the RLUIPA claim, the District Court for Maryland, following a recent case from the 11th circuit (Smith v. Allen, 502 F.3d 1255 (2007)), concluded that Congress was without power to provide for personal capacity suits under RLUIPA since Congress cannot use its Spending Power to subject individual defendants to individual liability on a private cause of action. Noting that a recent district court case from the same circuit reached a similar conclusion (Malik v Ozmint, 2008 WL 701517 (D.S.C. 2/13/2008)), the Court concluded that a personal capacity suit may not proceed against an individual defendant under RLUIPA. However, claims may proceed against the government defendants for actions taken in their official capacities.
Moxley v. Town of Walkerville, 2009 WL 585645 (D. Md. 3/5/2009).
The opinion can be accessed at: http://www.mdd.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Opinions/Moxley0306.pdf
