Love Church v. City of Evanston

• Decision Date: 13 June 1990
• Docket Number: Nos. 88-2960,88-3065,s. 88-2960
• Citation: 896 F.2d 1082
• Parties: LOVE CHURCH, an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. CITY OF EVANSTON, an Illinois municipal corporation, Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1082

896 F.2d 1082

LOVE CHURCH, an Illinois not-for-profit corporation Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. CITY OF EVANSTON, an Illinois municipal corporation Defendant-Appellant, Cross-Appellee.

Nos. 88-2960, 88-3065.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 6, 1989.

Decided March 1, 1990.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied June 13, 1990.

John W. Mauck, Richard Baker, Thomas Cameron, Mauck & Baker, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellee, cross-appellant.

Jack A. Siegel, Siegel & Warnock, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellant, cross-appellee.

Before BAUER, Chief Judge, and CUDAHY and KANNE, Circuit Judges.

BAUER, Chief Judge.

The City of Evanston appeals a judgment providing injunctive relief and monetary damages to the Love Church under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 for violations of the right to equal protection under the fourteenth amendment. Appellants argue that Love Church lacked standing to bring this claim and, in the alternative, that summary judgment for plaintiffs was inappropriate. Appellees have filed a cross-claim declaring that the injunctive relief granted was too narrow to address properly the alleged injury suffered by Love Church. Because we find that plaintiff lacked standing to bring this action, we vacate the judgment below and remand with directions to dismiss this claim.

I.

Marzell Gill founded Love Church, a fundamentalist, Pentacostal Church, in Evanston, Illinois, in June of 1985. ¹ Pastor Gill and his family began holding services at the Fleetwood-Jourdaine Community Center, a city-owned facility, in the summer of 1985. Approximately eleven people, including Pastor Gill's family, attended these meetings. Later services were moved to an auditorium in the Washington School in southwest Evanston. Six people attended these services. When school began in September of 1985, the Gills moved their church to a meeting room in the Evanston Holiday Inn. The Love Church continued to meet in the Holiday Inn until March of 1986. The final service held there, Easter Sunday of 1986, attracted 250 people, the highest attendance the church was ever to achieve.

From March through October of 1986, Pastor Gill held services at the Ridgeville Park District in south Evanston. Attendance at this site averaged 35 to 40 people each Sunday. During that time, Gill began to look unsuccessfully for permanent facilities for his congregation. In the fall of 1986, the Ridgeville Park District informed Gill that the rent would be increased. Gill also testified that Ridgeville authorities informed him that they would require a city permit for future church use of the facilities even if this use was only temporary. Gill, however, never applied for the permit. In November and December of 1986, the Love Church held its services in the Gills' two-bedroom apartment in Evanston. Finally, in January of 1986, the Love Church began meeting in the Skokie Holiday Inn.

On December 17, 1986, Pastor Gill and the Love Church filed the complaint from which this appeal stems. The complaint alleged that the Evanston Zoning Ordinance requiring churches to apply for special use permits had made it impossible for the Love Church to secure permanent meeting facilities.

The Evanston Zoning Ordinance (the "Ordinance") does not limit the location of church facilities to specifically designated areas. Ordinance Secs. 6-5-2(b); 6-7-2-2; 6-7-3-16(B). ² Rather, a church, synagogue, or other religious institution may be located anywhere in the city, regardless of the underlying zoning purpose, provided the interested parties apply for and receive a special use permit. Id. ³ To secure a permit, an applicant must file a detailed plan for the use of the facilities and pay a fee of between $370 and $480. Id. The Evanston Zoning Board then holds a hearing and issues a decision. Sec. 6-12-4(B). The entire process takes between four and six months. The Ordinance provides for misdemeanor fines of $25 to $500 a day for each violation. Sec. 6-11-13.

Love Church and Pastor Gill claimed that, due to the requirements of the Ordinance, they were unable to obtain a lease for their church. Thus, they filed suit under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 for injunctive relief, declaratory judgment and compensatory damages. Plaintiffs alleged, inter alia, that Evanston had violated their first amendment right to the free exercise of their religious beliefs as well as their rights to equal protection and due process under the fourteenth amendment. Evanston subsequently filed a motion to dismiss these claims.

On March 3, 1987, Judge Grady issued a memorandum opinion partially granting Evanston's motion to dismiss. Initially addressing the question of standing, Judge Grady held that the Love Church had alleged sufficient economic hardship under the Ordinance to establish standing. However, Pastor Gill was dismissed as a plaintiff for lack of standing since his claims simply derived from the independent claims of his church. Explaining its reasoning, the district court stated:

Evanston's ordinance is presumptively valid. Cosmopolitan National Bank v. County of Cook, 116 Ill.App.3d 1089, 1094 , 452 N.E.2d 817, 822 (1st Dist.1983). Plaintiffs have neither leased property nor applied for a special use permit. We presume Evanston will fairly apply the ordinance; if plaintiffs apply for a permit at an appropriate site, a permit presumably will issue.

671 F.Supp. at 511. Turning to the remaining substantive claims, the district court dismissed plaintiff Love Church's first amendment and due process challenges. The equal protection claims, however, were allowed to stand. Judge Grady then directed Evanston to provide a justification for the disparate treatment of religious organizations under its Ordinance.

Following additional briefing by the parties, the court entered summary judgment for plaintiffs on the equal protection claims on September 3, 1987. Love Church v. Evanston, 671 F.Supp. 515 (N.D.Ill.1987). The court held that Evanston improperly applied a different set of zoning requirements to churches and religious facilities than similarly situated facilities such as movie theatres, funeral homes, hotels, and community centers. These buildings, the court stated, were capable of creating the same traffic, parking, and safety concerns as churches, yet they were not required to obtain special use permits. Evanston had not provided a compelling justification for this distinction. Thus, Love Church's right to equal protection was violated. The court then requested additional briefing prior to determining damages or any injunctive relief.

Complicating the court's assessment of the appropriate relief was Love Church's continued inability to secure permanent facilities. The court noted with some frustration at a hearing on September 22, 1987:

We do not want ... this case for their own entertainment. This is a real life lawsuit. I have treated it as one from the beginning and I still regard it as such. So let's get down to brass tacks and see what it is you people (Love Church) want to do.

On March 15, 1988, nearly 15 months after the onset of this litigation, Love Church finally entered into a lease for space at 823 Davis Street in Evanston. The district court entered an injunction on that date barring Evanston from requiring a special use permit at that site.

Finally, on August 22, 1988, following several days of hearings and additional briefing by the parties, the court assessed damages against Evanston in the amount of $17,782.89. In his memorandum opinion, Chief Judge Grady noted that, in determining the level of damages in this case, "(m)ore than the usual degree of speculation is involved." Nonetheless, the district court held that a reasonable estimate was possible and found that Love Church was entitled to these damages as compensation for lost contributions, musical services and the costs of general disruption and inconvenience. Evanston subsequently appealed this judgment. For the following reasons we now vacate that judgment.

II.

Our threshold determination on this appeal is whether plaintiff Love Church has proper standing to bring this suit. As the Supreme Court has firmly stated, "of one thing we may be sure: Those who do not possess Art. III standing may not litigate as suitors in the courts of the United States." Valley Forge College v. Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, 454 U.S. 464, 475-76, 102 S.Ct. 752, 760-61, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982). Constitutional standing is limited to actual "cases" or "controversies." For, as has often been recognized, "Federal courts are not courts of general jurisdiction; they have only the power that is authorized by article III of the Constitution and the statutes enacted by Congress pursuant thereto." Bender v. Williamsport Area School Dist., 475 U.S. 534, 541, 106 S.Ct. 1326, 1331, 89 L.Ed.2d 501 (1986). If such a case or controversy is lacking, the district court cannot properly exercise jurisdiction, and our role on appeal is merely to correct this error--we may not reach the merits. Bender, 475 U.S. at 541, 106 S.Ct. at 1331; Foster v. Center Township of LaPorte County, 798 F.2d 237, 241 (7th Cir.1986). In its initial memorandum opinion in this matter, the district court held that Love Church had standing to litigate its claim. For the reasons explained below, we disagree.

The concept of standing does not lend itself easily to strict rules and facile application. Yet, the Supreme Court has recognized certain constitutional and prudential limitations on its exercise. See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2204, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). As the Court stated in Valley Forge

at an irreducible minimum, article III requires the party who invokes the court's authority to 'show that he personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant,' Gladstone Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 99 [...