6th Cir. Court of Appeals Affirms Preliminary Injunction Finding Plaintiffs Likely to Succeed on RLUIPA Claim

This post was authored by Sebastian Perez, Esq.

Catholic Healthcare International, Inc. (the “Plaintiffs”) commenced an action against The Genoa Charter Township located in the state of Michigan (the “Defendants”) alleging a violation of their rights under the federal and state constitutions as well as the Religious Land Use and Institutional Persons Act (“RLUIPA”) when The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan (the “district court”) dismissed certain claims as unripe and granted in part and denied in part the Plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction. This appeal followed.  

The district court issued two opinions that were appealed: the first opinion adjudicated a motion to dismiss, and dismissed as unripe Plaintiff’s claims arising from the prohibition and removal of Plaintiff’s religiously symbolic structures from the subject property; the second opinion denied in part and granted in part Plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction, specifically, the court declined to enter an injunction allowing Plaintiff’s to restore their religious displays, but the court entered an injunction that allowed Plaintiff’s to hold organized gatherings on their property. The United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit (the “Court”) reviewed the district court’s opinions, as to whether to issue a preliminary injunction and were guided by four factors: (1) whether the movant was likely to succeed on the merits of its claim; (2) whether the movant was likely to suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction; (3) the balance of equities; and the public interest, with the likelihood of success on the merits often the dispositive factor in RLUIPA cases.

As a threshold matter, where the Court addressed the Plaintiffs’ appeal seeking a preliminary injunction to restore religious elements to their prayer trail, the Court decided to adjudicate based solely on the claim under RLUIPA and avoided addressing the First Amendment claims under constitutional avoidance principles. Defendants argued a lack of jurisdiction to review the district court’s determination that Plaintiffs were unlikely to succeed on their RLUIPA claim, citing 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). However, the court asserted jurisdiction under § 1292(a)(1) to decide any “predicate issue,” including the ripeness determination that the plaintiffs’ claims were unripe.

Next, the district court’s ripeness determination was deemed mistaken, as the claim was considered ripe when the government adopted a “definitive position” on how regulations applied to the specific land, which occurred here. Defendants insisted that Plaintiffs obtain a special land-use permit for religious displays, and their applications were twice refused, which led to the removal of the displays. The Court determined that the district court erred by conflating ripeness and exhaustion by demanding a showing of compliance with administrative processes, contrary to the modest showing required for ripeness in the land-use context. The question then became whether the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their RLUIPA claim. RLUIPA prohibits the government from imposing a substantial burden on religious exercise unless it demonstrates a compelling interest and uses the least restrictive means. Defendant’s decision to treat the prayer trail as equivalent to a church building, which would have required a special land-use permit, was argued to impose a substantial burden on the Plaintiffs’ religious exercise, as demonstrated by the significant delay, uncertainty, and expense they faced. The Court suggested that Plaintiffs were likely to succeed on their RLUIPA claim, as Defendant failed to show that its insistence on the permit was narrowly tailored to advance a compelling interest. Additionally, the Court found that other preliminary injunction factors favored Plaintiffs, such as ongoing harm to their religious exercise, negligible harm to others, and public interest in protecting RLUIPA rights. Consequently, the Plaintiffs were entitled to a preliminary injunction allowing them to restore religious displays to their prayer trail. That left the Defendant’s appeal of the district court’s preliminary injunction order, particularly the part that restrained Defendant from enforcing a “prohibition of organized gatherings” on Plaintiffs’ property. Defendant, for two years, enforced a ban on organized gatherings based on an expired driveway permit, which significantly hindered Plaintiff’s religious mission. The Court determined that the ban was subject to strict scrutiny and was likely to be deemed a substantial burden on Plaintiffs’ religious exercise. 

Therefore, the Court affirmed the preliminary injunction order regarding the ban on organized gatherings and reversed it in part, remanding for the entry of a preliminary injunction that allowed the restoration of religious structures to the prayer trail. 

Catholic Healthcare International, Inc. v Genoa Charter Township, 2023 WL 5838792 (6th Cir. CA 9/11/2023)