The City of Dallas is suing Congregation Toras Chaim, Inc. (“CTC”), a small Jewish Orthodox synagogue that operates out of a private residential home, to enforce the City’s local code and require the synagogue to obtain a certificate of occupancy (“CO”).  Reportedly, up to 25 congregants attend religious worship services at the synagogue on the Sabbath.  Mark and Judith Gothelf, who own the home, have also been named as defendants.  The City alleges that the defendants must renovate the subject property to comply with certain handicap accessibility, fire safety, and parking requirements to obtain a CO.  The City alleges in its complaint (available here) that defendants’ failure to “obtain[] a CO [for synagogue use] and comply[] with the life-safety requirements entailed therein, presents a substantial danger of injury or adverse health impact to persons and/or property of persons other than the Defendants.”

According to defendants, the cost of implementing the City’s demands would be between $160,000 and $240,000.  The defendants, who are represented by the Liberty Institute, informed the City on January 23, 2014 that they would apply for a new CO to avoid litigation.  More than a year later, after the defendants still had not applied for a CO, the City informed them that an application would have to be made by February 23, 2015 or they would be sued.  The City kept true to its word.

The Liberty Institute has vowed to vigorously defend the rights of CTC, and released a statement noting in part:

People have been meeting in homes to worship for thousands of years in virtually every nation on earth.  The only countries that prohibit such freedoms are nations like China, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Yemen.  We will not allow the United States to be added to that list.

If CTC sounds familiar, it should.  A year ago, we reported that a private homeowner had sued the synagogue to enforce certain homeowners association rules and deed restrictions purporting to bar the use of the home as a synagogue for daily prayer services.  Last month, on February 4, 2015, Collin County District Court Judge Jill Willis rejected the private homeowner’s argument that state and federal religious freedom statutes apply only to action by governmental entities, and threw out the case.

In our same post of about a year ago, we noted: “the City of Dallas has requested that the Rabbi obtain a certificate of occupancy to use his home as a synagogue.  Depending on the City’s imposition of its land use requirements on Congregation Toras Chaim, including a potential denial of the certificate of occupancy, it may soon find itself embroiled in the lawsuit defending against claims that it violated RLUIPA.”  Our prediction appears to have been correct, as the Liberty Institute, in correspondence dated December 3, 2014, stated that although the defendants do “not wish to litigate with the City of Dallas and do[] sincerely desire an amicable resolution of this dispute … banning the congregants of CTC from practicing their religion would require an aggressive defense of CTC’s rights.”

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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.