In an important decision for municipal officials across the country, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, in American Islamic Center v. City of Des Plaines, No. 13-C-6594 (N.D. Ill. 2014), ruled that city council members alleged to have discriminated against an Islamic organization in its application to rezone certain property are entitled to absolute legislative immunity.

The American Islamic Center (AIC) provides religious and educational services to Muslims throughout the Chicago metropolitan area.  The AIC, which had been looking for a permanent facility to conduct these activities since 2011, contracted to buy certain property in Des Plaines, Illinois in a manufacturing zoning district to conduct these activities in February 2013.  The contract to purchase the property was conditioned on it being rezoned to an industrial zoning district where religious and educational activities are permitted.  In June 2013, the Des Plaines Plan Commission conducted a public hearing at which it found that rezoning the property would neither significantly harm traffic and parking patterns nor require the expansion of public facilities.  It recommended that the Des Plaines City Council adopt the proposed amendment.  In July 2013, however, the City Council denied the proposed amendment by a vote of 5 to 3.

The AIC sued the City of Des Plaines and the five members of the City Council in their individual capacities who voted against the rezoning request.  The AIC sued under RLUIPA, the United States Constitution, and state law.  The only claims brought against the City Council members were violations of the free exercise of religion and the equal protection clause, under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. 

The District Court found in favor of the City Council members in their motion to dismiss the claims brought against them because they were entitled to absolute legislative immunity.  The AIC argued that the City Council members’ actions were administrative or executive in nature and not entitled to immunity, as opposed to legislative acts taken in their legislative capacity which are entitled to immunity.  In concluding that the City Council members were acting legislatively, thus entitling the members to absolute legislative immunity, the District Court observed:

There is no question that the denial of the proposed zoning amendment had its most direct and immediate impact on AIC.  But the impact of the denial was not limited to AIC.  It also affected the property’s owner, who lost the opportunity to sell the property to AIC.  In addition, the property that AIC wished to buy will remain zoned for manufacturing activity regardless of who comes to own it, unless and until the city council’s actions are properly characterized as legislative, not executive or administrative.  When the council denied the zoning amendment and passed the later resolution rejecting the amendment, it was engaging in legislative acts.

Although the court in this instance found that the local officials were entitled to absolute immunity because they were acting in their legislative capacity, what is “legislative,” “administrative,” or “quasi-judicial” may not always be obvious and varies among the states.  In view of the Des Plaines decision, local government lawyers may wish to review the classification of decision-making and its impact on immunity, and then spend some time briefing local decision-makers. 

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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.

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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.

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