Fed. Dist. Court in OR Denies Church’s Alleged RLUIPA Equal Terms Violation

This post was authored by Sebastian Perez, JD

The Athey Creek Christian Fellowship (“Plaintiff”) filed suit against Clackamas County (“Defendant”)  alleging that the Zoning and Development Ordinance (the “ZDO”) as applied to its church building project violated the equal terms provision of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (“RLUIPA”). The United States District Court, District of Oregon, (the “Court”) heard argument on Plaintiff’s motion.

Plaintiff sought an order enjoining Defendant from requiring Plaintiff to obtain a new or modified conditional use permit for its project and also moved for a declaration that two sections of the ZDO facially violated RLUIPA. As the party that sought a preliminary injunction, it was Plaintiff’s burden to show that the extraordinary remedy of a preliminary injunction was warranted. To succeed, Plaintiff needed to show that: (1) they were likely to succeed on the merits; (2) they were likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence or preliminary relief; (3) the balance of equities tips in their favor; and (4) an injunction was in the public interest. Plaintiff bore the burden of demonstrating that it met all four prongs. Without preliminary relief, the irreparable harm Plaintiff asserted was the inability to follow their biblical mandate to gather as much of the congregation together as possible for worship. The Court disagreed and noted that Plaintiff’s inability to grow its church was because it failed to apply for a required conditional use permit (CUP) which did not deprive them of continued use of the newly constructed church. The Court held that Plaintiff failed to meet its burden and on each of the four prongs when it failed to bring forth more than speculative evidence of irreparable harm and decided it need not reach the merits of the remaining factors.

Therefore, the Court denied Plaintiff’s motion for preliminary injunction and declaratory relief.

Athey Greek Christian Fellowship v Clackamas County, 2023 WL 2898934 (D. OR 3/16/2023)