In August, we posted about the case Parish of Jefferson v. Daughters of St. Paul Inc. (La. App. Ct. 2013) (click here to read that post).  In that case, the plaintiff, a non-profit corporation with a community of religious women who share their religious beliefs through media, claimed that a Jefferson Parish Ordinance, which regulated the Parish’s rights-of-way in the Commercial Parkway Overlay Zone and required that those using the Parish’s rights-of-way compensate it for such use, violated RLUIPA.  Daughters of St. Paul operated a bookstore and used Parish land directly in front of its building for parking, but did not compensate the Parish for such use as required by the Parish Ordinance.  The Parish sued Daughters of St. Paul requesting that the trial court order Daughters of St. Paul compensate it for use of the right-of-way.

Daughters of St. Paul alleged that the Parish Ordinance violated RLUIPA’s substantial burden provision because it made the use of its building “effectively impractical,” as the choice of leasing the right-of-way from the Parish or forfeiting the use of the right-of-way “brings significant pressure that directly coerces it to conform its behavior or effectively bars it from using its building on the property in the exercise of its religion.”  Although Daughters of St. Paul further alleged that it would be forced to change its religious practice by having to either start charging for certain services to increase its income or decrease the services and goods it provides pursuant to its religious beliefs, the Louisiana Appellate Court found that the Parish Ordinance did not substantially burden its religious exercise because (1) the financial burden of leasing the right-of-way did not infringe on Daughters of St. Pauls’ religious exercise; (2) the inconvenience of having to find alternate parking and having to possibly increase its revenue did not rise to the level of substantial burden under RLUIPA; and (3) ingress and egress to the bookstore would not be prohibited, only the parking spaces in front of the building would be prohibited for the parking of vehicles.

On June 14, 2013, the Louisiana Supreme Court denied Daughters of St. Pauls’ petition for certiorari to review the decision of the Appellate Court.  Thereafter, Daughters of St. Paul petitioned the United States Supreme Court to review the decision and presented the following question for review:

Where the 2000 Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Person’s Act is applicable to the petitioner’s use of the Pauline Book Store, does the enforcement of a municipal ordinance known as the Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance for Commercial Parkway Overlay Zone impose a substantial burden on the petitioners’ exercise of religion, where the Louisiana Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has determined that denial of access to customers and communicants of the religious bookstore and chapel of the petitioners, other than being dropped off, is not a substantial burden under the provisions of RLUIPA?

On November 12, 2013, the United States Supreme Court declined to review the case (Docket No. 13-311).  To date, the United States Supreme Court has not reviewed a RLUIPA case in the land use context.

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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.