Jesus Christ is the Answer Ministries, Inc. v. Balt. Cnty.

• Citation: 915 F.3d 256
• Decision Date: 07 February 2019
• Docket Number: No. 18-1450,18-1450
• Parties: JESUS CHRIST IS THE ANSWER MINISTRIES, INC.; Rev. Lucy Ware, Plaintiffs - Appellants, v. BALTIMORE COUNTY, MARYLAND; Board of Appeals of Baltimore County, Maryland, Defendants – Appellees. United States of America, Amicus Supporting Appellants.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (4th Circuit)

915 F.3d 256

JESUS CHRIST IS THE ANSWER MINISTRIES, INC.; Rev. Lucy Ware, Plaintiffs - Appellants,
v.
BALTIMORE COUNTY, MARYLAND; Board of Appeals of Baltimore County, Maryland, Defendants – Appellees.

United States of America, Amicus Supporting Appellants.

No. 18-1450

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: October 31, 2018
Decided: February 7, 2019
Amended: February 25, 2019

ARGUED: Roman P. Storzer, STORZER & ASSOCIATES, P.C., Washington, D.C., for Appellants. James Joseph Nolan, Jr., Paul M. Mayhew, BALTIMORE COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Towson, Maryland, for Appellees. John Matthew Gore, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Amicus United States of America. ON BRIEF: Sieglinde K. Rath, STORZER & ASSOCIATES, P.C., Washington, D.C.; Lawrence E. Schmidt, SMITH GILDEA & SCHMIDT LLC, Towson, Maryland, for Appellants. Michael E. Field, County Attorney, R. Brady Locher, Assistant County Attorney, BALTIMORE COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Towson, Maryland, for Appellees. Tovah R. Calderon, Katherine E. Lamm, Appellate Section, Civil Rights Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Amicus United States of America.

Before NIEMEYER, AGEE, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.

Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge Diaz wrote the opinion, in which Judge Niemeyer and Judge Agee joined.

DIAZ, Circuit Judge:

Jesus Christ Is the Answer Ministries, Inc. (the "Church") and Reverend Lucy Ware appeal the dismissal of their claims against Baltimore County and the Board of Appeals of Baltimore County. The district court dismissed Plaintiffs’ suit for failure to state a claim under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc et seq. , the Free Exercise Clause, the Equal Protection Clause, and Article 36 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. For the reasons that follow, we vacate and remand for further proceedings.

I.

A.

Jesus Christ is the Answer Ministries, Inc. is a nondenominational Christian church founded in Baltimore in 1997 by Reverend Lucy Ware.¹ The Church describes itself as evangelical and multicultural.

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It has associated churches in Kenya and the Seychelles, and many of the Church’s congregants were born in Africa. Reverend Ware was born in Kenya, where she was active in her family church until moving to the United States.

The Church has struggled to secure an adequate house of worship, and this has impeded its religious mission. This lawsuit arises from Ware’s unsuccessful efforts to obtain County approval to operate a church on property that she purchased for that purpose in 2012 (the "Property").

The Property consists of 1.2 acres of land with a building previously used as a dwelling. It is zoned under the Baltimore County Zoning Regulations ("BCZR") as "Density Residential 3.5."

In this zone, churches are permitted as of right subject to certain conditions, including that parking lots and structures are (1) set back 75 feet from tract boundaries, and (2) separated from adjacent lots by a 50-foot landscaped buffer. BCZR §§ 1B01.1.A.3, 1B01.1.B.1.e. These conditions, however, don’t apply to new churches whose site plans have been approved after a public hearing finding that compliance with the conditions will be maintained "to the extent possible," and that the plan "can otherwise be expected to be compatible with the character and general welfare of the surrounding residential premises." Id. § 1B01.1.B.1.g.(6).

Before Ware purchased the Property, her realtor advised her that a church was a permitted use on the Property.

After buying the Property, Ware made improvements to the building and parking lot and held a church service and cookout. Neighbors complained to the County, and a County inspector notified Ware that she couldn’t use the Property as a church unless she complied with applicable zoning requirements.

Ware filed a petition with the County to approve use of the Property as a church. The petition proposed a buffer and setback of zero feet, seeking complete relief from the zoning requirements. It also sought variances from parking requirements. The County Director of the Department of Planning did not oppose the petition, "provided a landscape and signage plan is submitted to the department for review and approval." J.A. 19 ¶ 105. A hearing was held before an Administrative Law Judge ("ALJ"). Neighbors who opposed the petition attended and participated.

At the hearing, several neighbors made comments displaying open hostility to Ware and the Church. These comments included: (1) "dancing and hollering like they back at their home back in Africa somewhere"; (2) "[s]he can come over here from Africa ... branch out from another church and put all of this in our neighborhood"; and (3) "[t]hey were out here dancing like from Africa. We don’t have that in our block." J.A. 19 ¶ 108. Since the hearing, neighbors have subjected the Church and its members to a sustained barrage of harassment, including racial slurs. The Property has also been subject to vandalism and theft.

The ALJ recommended denying Ware’s petition. Ware appealed this recommendation to the Board of Appeals. The Board denied the petition, finding that "the proposed Church does not even minimally comply" with the applicable zoning requirements and that the plan would not be compatible with "the character or general welfare of the surrounding homes which homes are occupied by the [neighbors] who testified." J.A. 57. The Board’s decision was affirmed by the Circuit Court for Baltimore County and the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland. Ware v. People’s Counsel , 223 Md.App. 669, 117 A.3d 628 (2015).

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While the first petition was pending appeal, Ware filed a second petition. This new petition included a modified site plan that (1) moved the parking lot to increase the setback to 55–72.7 feet and the buffer to 50 feet, and (2) did not seek any parking variances. The new petition also differed from its predecessor in that it sought approval not only under the zoning provision governing new churches, but also under a separate provision governing existing churches.

The People’s Counsel (a county official) initially sought dismissal of the new petition, on the ground that it sought essentially the same relief as its predecessor. The neighbors who opposed the first petition adopted the People’s Counsel’s motion to dismiss. But the People’s Counsel subsequently withdrew his motion based on the differences between the two petitions. Nevertheless, the neighbors continued to pursue dismissal. The Board granted the motion to dismiss, holding that the new petition was barred by res judicata and collateral estoppel.

B.

Ware and the Church then filed suit in federal district court, alleging that the Board’s dismissal of the second petition violated RLUIPA’s substantial burden and nondiscrimination provisions, the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and Article 36 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, which protects freedom of religion at the state level. The district court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. This appeal followed.

II.

We review the district court’s dismissal order de novo, accepting as true the facts alleged in the complaint and drawing all reasonable inferences in Plaintiffs’ favor, to determine whether the complaint contains facts sufficient to state a claim that is "plausible on its face." Kensington Volunteer Fire Dep’t, Inc. v. Montgomery County , 684 F.3d 462, 467 (4th Cir. 2012) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ).

A.

We begin with Plaintiffs’ claim that Defendants substantially burdened their religious exercise, in violation of RLUIPA, by dismissing the second petition.² We agree with the Plaintiffs that the district court erred in dismissing this claim.

RLUIPA prohibits land use regulations that impose a "substantial burden" on religious practice, unless they are the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest. 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(a)(1). A substantial burden exists where a regulation "puts substantial pressure on [the plaintiff] to modify its behavior." Bethel World Outreach Ministries v. Montgomery Cty. Council , 706 F.3d 548, 556 (4th Cir. 2013).

As relevant here, land use regulations can substantially burden religious

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exercise where an organization acquires property expecting to use it for a religious purpose but is prevented from doing so by the application of a zoning ordinance. In such a case, two questions are usually relevant to determining whether RLUIPA has been violated.

First, is the impediment to the organization’s religious practice substantial? The answer will usually be "yes" where use of the property would serve an unmet religious need, the restriction on religious use is absolute rather than conditional, and the organization must acquire a different property as a result. See Bethel , 706 F.3d at 557–58.

Second, who is responsible for the impediment—the government, or the religious organization? In answering this question,...