We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, religious land use disputes often take a long time to resolve. World Outreach Conference Center v. City of Chicago, Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728 (7th Cir. 2015) is no exception to the rule. The case, which Judge Posner observed “will soon have lasted as long as the Trojan War” and referred to as “messy and protracted litigation,” was remanded back to the district court on June 1, 2015. The Seventh Circuit found that the lower court erred in granting the City’s partial motion for summary judgment after finding that many of the burdens imposed on the plaintiff were not “substantial.”  For a recitation of the case facts leading up to the most recent oral argument, as told by the plaintiff’s attorney Noel W. Sterett of Mauck & Baker, refer to our Guest Commentary: Seventh Circuit Hears Oral Argument Again in World Outreach Conference Center v. City of Chicago.

In its 2009 decision, the Seventh Circuit found that the World Outreach Conference Center (World Outreach) may have been substantially burdened by the City of Chicago’s refusal to grant, for two years, a license to World Outreach to operate a community center and rent 168 single-room occupancy apartments (SROs) on a temporary basis to needy persons. World Outreach wished to operate out of a building formerly operated by the YMCA to conduct substantially similar activities as had been conducted by the YMCA. For years, the YMCA operated under the then-current zoning as a legal nonconforming use without any request or order by the City that it obtain a special use permit (SUP). Since nonconforming use status runs with the land, the Court concluded that World Outreach was entitled to the same status. However, when World Outreach applied for the required licenses (which were granted to the YMCA as a matter of course) it was denied and told to apply for a SUP.

In 2005, the City filed suit against World Outreach in state court, but the case was voluntarily dismissed. Both the District Court and the Seventh Circuit recognized the 2005 action as frivolous, and the June 1, 2015 decision affirms the district court’s grant of costs and fees associated with defending the action:

It’s true that to show that the suit violated RLUIPA, World Outreach had to show that the attorneys’ fees that it had incurred constituted a “substantial burden” on its religious activities. It’s hard to imagine a vaguer criterion for a violation of religious rights. But a frivolous suit aimed at preventing a religious organization from using its only facility—a suit that must have distracted the leadership of the organization, that imposed substantial attorneys’ fees on the organization, and that seems to have been part of a concerted effort to prevent it from using its sole facility to serve the religious objectives of the organization (to provide, as a religious duty, facilities for religious activities and observances and living facilities for homeless and other needy people)—cannot be thought to have imposed a merely in-substantial burden on the organization.

The Seventh Circuit concluded that the district court erred in finding, at the summary judgment stage, that World Outreach was not substantially burdened by the City’s actions other than filing the frivolous lawsuit. The evidence presented in opposition to the City’s motion was “too well balanced” to support summary judgment in the City’s favor: the court noted the two-year delay in granting World Outreach’s licenses, the “animosity” of the City alderman, and the difference in treatment between World Outreach and the YMCA.

Finally, for “guidance on remand,” the court considered World Outreach’s damage claim based on the fact that the federal government could have housed up to 168 Hurricane Katrina survivors at World Outreach, paying up to $750 a month per room. Although the court found the evidence presented on the point was “weak,” it also concluded that proof of such damages was an issue for trial.

Judge Cudahy provided a concurring opinion – notable at least for its brevity:

“Unfortunately; and I think the opinion must be stamped with a large ‘MAYBE.’”

 

 

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Photo of Evan Seeman Evan Seeman

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of…

Evan J. Seeman is a lawyer in Robinson+Cole’s Hartford office and focuses his practice on land use, real estate, environmental, and regulatory matters, representing local governments, developers and advocacy groups. He has spoken and written about RLUIPA, and was a lead author of an amicus curiae brief at the petition stage before the United States Supreme Court in a RLUIPA case entitled City of San Leandro v. International Church of the Foursquare Gospel.

Evan serves as the Secretary/Treasurer of the APA’s Planning & Law Division. He also serves as the Chair of the Planning & Zoning Section of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Young Lawyers Section, and is the former Co-Chair of its Municipal Law Section. He has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list as a Rising Star in the area of Land Use Law for 2013 and 2014. He received his B.A. in political science and Russian studies (with honors) from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, where he was selected as the President’s Fellow in the Department of Modern Languages and Literature. Evan received his Juris Doctor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, where he served on the Connecticut Law Review. While in law school, he interned with the Connecticut Office of the Attorney General in the environmental department, and served as a judicial intern for the judges of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Court. Following law school, Evan clerked for the Honorable F. Herbert Gruendel of the Connecticut Appellate Court.

Photo of Dwight Merriam Dwight Merriam

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of…

Dwight H. Merriam founded Robinson+Cole’s Land Use Group in 1978. He represents land owners, developers, governments and individuals in land use matters, with a focus on defending governments in RLUIPA cases. Dwight is a Fellow and Past President of the American Institute of Certified Planners, a former Director of the American Planning Association (APA), a former chair of APA’s Planning and Law Division, Immediate Past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Section of State and Local Government Law, Chair of the Institute of Local Government Studies at the Center for American and International Law, a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation, a member of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute National Advisory Board, a Fellow of the Connecticut Bar Foundation, a Counselor of Real Estate, a member of the Anglo-American Real Property Institute, and a Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers.

He teaches land use law at the University of Connecticut School of Law and at Vermont Law School and has published over 200 articles and eight books, including Inclusionary Zoning Moves Downtown, The Takings Issue, The Complete Guide to Zoning, and Eminent Domain Use and Abuse: Kelo in Context. He is the senior co-author of the leading casebook on land use law, Planning and Control of Land Development (Eighth Edition). Dwight has written and spoken widely on how to avoid RLUIPA claims and how to successfully defend against them in court. He is currently writing a book on the subject, RLUIPA DEFENSE, for the American Bar Association.

Dwight has been named to the Connecticut Super Lawyers® list in the area of Land Use Law since 2006, is one of the Top 50 Connecticut Super Lawyers in Connecticut, and is one of the Top 100 New England Super Lawyers (Super Lawyers is a registered trademark of Key Professional Media, Inc.). He received his B.A. (cum laude) from the University of Massachusetts, his Masters of Regional Planning from the University of North Carolina, where he was the graduation speaker in 2011, and his J.D. from Yale. He is a featured speaker at many land use seminars, and presents monthly audio land use seminars for the International Municipal Lawyers Association. Dwight has been cited in the national press from The New York Times to People magazine and has appeared on NBC’s The Today Show, MSNBC and public television.

Dwight also had a career in the Navy, serving for three tours in Vietnam aboard ship, then returning to be the Senior Advisor of the Naval ROTC Unit at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill where he taught Defense Administration and Military Management as an Assistant Professor in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum in Defense Administration and Military Management. He left active duty after seven years to attend law school, but continued on for 24 more years as a reserve Surface Warfare Officer with two major commands, including that of the reserve commanding officer of the Naval Undersea Warfare Center. He retired as a Captain in 2009 after 31 years of service.