Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-13-03669/USCOURTS-ca7-13-03669-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Pamela Blossom
Appellant
City of Chicago
Appellee
World Outreach Conference Center
Appellant

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728

WORLD OUTREACH CONFERENCE CENTER and PAMELA

 BLOSSOM,

Plaintiffs-Appellants/Cross-Appellees,

v.

CITY OF CHICAGO,

Defendant-Appellee/Cross-Appellant.

____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 6 C 2891— Joan Humphrey Lefkow, Judge.

____________________

ARGUED MARCH 31, 2015 — DECIDED JUNE 1, 2015

____________________

Before CUDAHY, POSNER, and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

POSNER, Circuit Judge. This appeal (actually appeal and 

cross-appeal) from a district court decision that attempted to 

resolve a messy and protracted litigation is a sequel to an 

appeal that we decided five and a half years ago in World 

Outreach Conference Center v. City of Chicago, 591 F.3d 531 (7th 

Cir. 2009); the reader’s familiarity with our earlier opinion is 

assumed, enabling us to abbreviate our discussion.

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2 Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728

The former appeal was brought primarily (and for the

sake of simplicity we’ll assume only) by the World Outreach 

Conference Center, a Christian religious organization in Chicago. (We’ll call it, for the sake of brevity, “World Outreach,” 

but the reader should understand that the World Outreach 

Conference Center is only one World Outreach religious organization.) It challenged the district court’s dismissal of the 

suit on the pleadings. We agreed with the challenge, and reversed the district court’s decision and remanded the case. 

World Outreach’s current appeal is from the grant of summary judgment (by a different district judge, her predecessor 

having resigned) in favor of the City on all but one of World 

Outreach’s claims. The City’s cross-appeal is from the 

judge’s grant of partial summary judgment in favor of 

World Outreach on that claim. The effect of the two partial 

grants of summary judgment was to terminate the litigation, 

begun nine years ago.

The only basis for the suit that requires discussion (it is 

duplicated by the other grounds alleged) is the provision in

the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 

2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc et seq., that a land-use 

regulation “that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a ... religious assembly or institution” is 

unlawful “unless the government demonstrates that imposition of the burden ... is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” 42 U.S.C. 

§ 2000cc(a)(1). We can ignore the “unless” clause, as the 

City’s argument is limited to denying that it imposed a substantial burden on World Outreach’s religious activities; it 

does not assert “a compelling governmental interest” in doCase: 13-3669 Document: 54 Filed: 06/01/2015 Pages: 12
Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728 3

ing so or deny that World Outreach is indeed a religious institution.

World Outreach (which remember is our abbreviation of 

World Outreach Conference Center) emphasizes assistance 

to the poor. See World Outreach Conference Center, “Mission Statement,” www.worldoutreachconferencecenter.org/

index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47&Itemi

d=53 (visited May 8, 2015). Its only facility is a building that 

it bought from the YMCA in July 2005, located in a poor area 

on Chicago’s south side. The building has several floors. The 

first floor has a swimming pool, two gyms, and several 

meeting rooms sometimes used for religious services. The 

upper floors have a total of 168 single-room apartments

called single-room occupancy—SRO—units. As the YMCA 

had done, World Outreach rents these apartments on a temporary basis to needy persons.

The YMCA needed to get a license every year, as did its 

successor as owner of the building, World Outreach, to permit it to rent rooms. The YMCA had had no trouble getting 

the license year after year even after the area in which its 

building was located had been rezoned as a community 

shopping district, in which residential use would not be 

permitted. For the YMCA’s residential use of the 168 rooms 

was what is called a “legal nonconforming use”—

nonconforming because it didn’t conform to the new zoning 

ordinance but legal because its nonconforming use was 

grandfathered; a “nonconforming status runs with the land 

and is not affected by changes of tenancy, ownership, or management.” Chicago Zoning Ordinance § 17–15–0106 (emphasis added). So World Outreach’s use of the building for the 

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4 Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728

same basic purposes as the YMCA (which is also of course a 

religious organization) was legal.

The passage we just quoted from the zoning ordinance 

has a further significance. A change in ownership as such 

has no effect on a building’s status as a legal nonconforming 

use. And the City’s zoning department had no reason to 

think that the change of ownership in this case would significantly change the use to which the building was put. World 

Outreach wasn’t intending to tear the building down, consolidate the 168 single rooms into a dozen luxury suites, or 

fill the swimming pool with golden carp; it intended to use

the building as the YMCA had used it. It is true that at first

Pastor Blossom, the director of World Outreach, was unclear 

whether she would continue to rent the SROs. She thought 

she might replace them with a conference center, office 

space, day care center, Christian nightclub, and bible school. 

But she never followed through with that idea. Instead she 

sought a license to continue renting the SRO units, as the 

YMCA had done. 

World Outreach encountered great difficulty in obtaining 

the licenses it needed (the one we just mentioned, plus a license to operate the community center). Such licenses must 

be obtained annually by the building’s owner, not to prove 

legal nonconforming use but to make sure that the building 

is being operated in conformity with the City’s building 

code. The reasons for the difficulty that World Outreach encountered in obtaining the required licenses remain obscure 

even after all these years of litigation. But on the basis of the 

evidence compiled to date (remember that there has been no 

trial), the likeliest reasons appear to be incompetence by the 

City’s zoning department, a desire of the alderman (AnthoCase: 13-3669 Document: 54 Filed: 06/01/2015 Pages: 12
Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728 5

ny A. Beale) of the Ninth Ward, in which the building is located, that the building be owned either by Chicago State 

University or Provider Realty Corporation, or fumbles on 

the part of World Outreach.

Chicago aldermen are powerful figures in the city’s political system, and Alderman Beale may have pressured the 

City’s zoning department to prevent World Outreach from 

using the building as it intended even though the intended 

use would be virtually identical to that of its predecessor the 

YMCA, which had owned and operated the building for 

eighty years. His stated reason for opposing World Outreach’s buying the building—and for all we know his primary or even sole reason—was concern that World Outreach 

wouldn’t be able to afford the repairs that the building apparently needed. We don’t know the current status of those 

repairs.

The zoning department refused to grant World Outreach 

a license, ostensibly because World Outreach didn’t have a 

Special Use Permit (SUP), which would have permitted the 

building to be used for a purpose (residence) forbidden by 

the current zoning of the area in which the building was located. The department should have known—maybe did 

know, since the YMCA’s prior use of the facility was noted 

in its records—that World Outreach didn’t need a Special 

Use Permit, because its intended use of the building was as a 

legal nonconforming use—basically it was continuing the 

YMCA’s use of the building, only under a different name. It 

did need, and promptly after buying the building applied 

for, both a license to operate the community center in the 

building (that is, the facilities on the first floor) and an SRO 

license to allow it to rent the 168 single-room occupancy 

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6 Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728

units. But the City refused to issue the SRO license, on the 

ground that it could not lawfully do so until World Outreach 

obtained a Special Use Permit. World Outreach did need an 

SRO license in order to be allowed to rent the rooms, just as 

it needed a license to operate the community center, in order 

to certify the facilities’ compliance with the City’s building 

code. But it didn’t need—and after September, when the area was reclassified as a Limited Manufacturing/Business 

Park District, could no longer have gotten—a Special Use 

Permit.

In December 2005 the City backed up its unlawful insistence that World Outreach obtain a Special Use Permit by suing World Outreach in an Illinois state court, contending that 

the religious organization’s use of the building as a community center and church or religious assembly was illegal because it had no SUP. The complaint, consisting of 66 paragraphs of accusations and demands, was frivolous, and was 

voluntarily abandoned by the City in April of the following 

year. World Outreach, which had informed the City prior to 

dismissal that it planned to file counterclaims, promptly asserted its claims in a separate suit that it filed in state court. 

The City removed the case to federal court, kicking off the 

present litigation. Finally, in August 2007, two years after 

World Outreach had bought the YMCA’s building—and according to World Outreach, after the City had required information on World Outreach’s permit applications far beyond anything it had required of the YMCA—the City relented and licensed World Outreach to operate the building 

as a community center (using the facilities on the first floor 

of the building) and to rent the 168 rooms on the upper 

floors for single-room occupancy. Yet according to World 

Outreach the City continued harassing it, by conducting inCase: 13-3669 Document: 54 Filed: 06/01/2015 Pages: 12
Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728 7

spections with a frequency unknown when the YMCA had 

occupied the building (using it for essentially identical purposes). 

The City’s state court suit against World Outreach was 

indeed frivolous, as the district judge in this second round of 

the litigation ruled on summary judgment. Some very minor 

claims included in the suit may have had merit, such as that 

World Outreach had committed off-street parking violations

and posted signs without obtaining proper permits, but the 

district judge was properly skeptical that the City would 

have filed a lawsuit based on just those claims, as opposed to 

issuing parking tickets or other minor administrative penalties. The judge was also on sound ground in ordering the 

City to reimburse World Outreach for the litigation expenses 

that it incurred in that suit; for such an award is of course a 

conventional remedy for having to defend against a frivolous suit. It’s true that to show that the suit violated 

RLUIPA, World Outreach had to show that the attorneys’ 

fees that it had incurred constituted a “substantial burden” 

on its religious activities. It’s hard to imagine a vaguer criterion for a violation of religious rights. But a frivolous suit 

aimed at preventing a religious organization from using its 

only facility—a suit that must have distracted the leadership 

of the organization, that imposed substantial attorneys’ fees 

on the organization, and that seems to have been part of a 

concerted effort to prevent it from using its sole facility to 

serve the religious objectives of the organization (to provide, 

as a religious duty, facilities for religious activities and observances and living facilities for homeless and other needy 

people)—cannot be thought to have imposed a merely insubstantial burden on the organization.

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8 Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728

A more difficult question is whether the district judge

was also correct to grant summary judgment in favor of the 

City with respect to World Outreach’s remaining claims.

Remember that it took it two years to obtain the licenses it 

needed in order to be able to operate its building for the religious purposes that it intended. The district judge thought 

that the responsibility for the delay lay with World Outreach’s failure to prove to the City’s satisfaction that the 

building would be safe and, in particular, that its 168 SRO 

rooms would be habitable. The judge noted that the YMCA 

had had a number of citations for building code violations 

pending when it sold the building. The zoning department 

told World Outreach in May 2006 that it would have to 

submit to the department, among other things, “architectural drawings of every floor and the entire building” and the 

“square footage of every floor and the entire building.” 

World Outreach did not fully comply for eight months. But 

it had been an odd request, for the zoning department must 

have had this information already, dating from the YMCA’s 

ownership of the building. The change in ownership had not 

changed the size or shape or design of the building. If the 

zoning department was concerned about changes that World 

Outreach was thinking of making in the building’s interior, 

it could have asked it for the building plans relating to any

projected changes. The request in its expansive scope thus 

looks like harassment. But even if this is wrong, and World 

Outreach’s other excuses for delay in complying are rejected,

the consequence would merely be to shorten, rather than to 

eliminate, the period during which it was wrongfully denied 

the licenses it needed in order to be permitted to operate the 

building in accordance with its religious plans. The effect of 

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Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728 9

invalidating all its excuses would thus be limited to reducing 

the damages it could prove.

The evidence presented in support of and opposition to

the City’s motion for summary judgment was too well balanced to justify the district judge in granting the motion. 

There was the animosity of the alderman to be considered, 

along with the fact that Chicago aldermen exercise significant power over activities of City government in their wards. 

There was the fact that the YMCA had accumulated a great 

number of citations for building code violations over the 

years, yet its licenses to operate the community center in the 

building and to rent the 168 rooms had always been issued 

in the ordinary course. (Maybe the zoning department considered the YMCA a more “respectable” religious organization than World Outreach; it is certainly older and better 

known.) There is the mysterious, and possibly malevolent, 

insistence by the City, contrary to its own ordinance, that 

World Outreach required a Special Use Permit for the building.

We do not say that World Outreach proved its case, other than with regard to the frivolous suit that the City had 

brought against it. But this is just to say that a trial is required to determine the rights of the parties; for contrary to 

the decision of the district court, a reasonable jury could 

find, especially by comparison with how the City had treated the YMCA’s ownership and virtually identical management (replete with building-code violations) of the building,

that the City had arbitrarily imposed a substantial burden on 

World Outreach’s religious activities. We can understand the 

judge’s desire to end a litigation that will soon have lasted as 

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10 Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728

long as the Trojan War, but we do not think that the end is

yet in sight.

For guidance on remand, we consider finally the largest 

element of damages sought by World Outreach, besides the 

expenses it incurred, which the district judge properly 

awarded to it, in defending against the City’s frivolous suit. 

Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and other places on 

the Gulf Coast late in August of 2005 with enormous destructive force. Many thousands of residents of the region 

had to be evacuated. As many as 10,000 of them may have 

been evacuated to Chicago. Living quarters had to be found 

for them. World Outreach volunteered its rooms, which at 

the time were still empty. There is evidence that it might 

have been able to charge the state or federal governments 

$750 a month, for an entire year, for each evacuee that it 

housed, had it been permitted by the City to rent its rooms

(it was forbidden, because it had been denied a license to 

rent them); and $750 times 12 months times 168 rooms is 

$1,512,000. World Outreach would have incurred some expenses but probably have cleared a tidy profit to use for its 

other activities—$591,000, it says.

But the evidence it presented is weak. It is limited to a 

few statements by Ronald Carter, the Director of Strategic 

Planning of the Illinois Department of Human Services—

statements uttered before any final arrangements for Katrina 

evacuees had been made by FEMA (the Federal Emergency 

Management Agency)—that World Outreach’s SRO units 

could be used to house evacuees. It is uncertain whether

World Outreach would have received any, let alone 168, 

evacuees, let alone for a full year (there is no evidence of 

how long evacuees remained in Chicago before returning 

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Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728 11

home), even if the City had allowed it to rent the rooms, rather than insisting erroneously on the necessity of a Special 

Use Permit. World Outreach has presented no evidence of 

where the evacuees to Chicago ended up being housed, or 

for how long, or at what expense to government agencies, 

and whether World Outreach’s SRO units would have been 

preferred by the Illinois Department of Human Services or 

by FEMA to accommodations in other buildings in Chicago. 

There is no indication that Carter was authorized to place 

evacuees with World Outreach, and his strongest statement 

was merely that he was “very interested in the facility.” (In a 

similar vein, another official with the Department said “I 

didn’t see any reason why I would not use them [i.e., World 

Outreach] as a referral.”) There has been a failure of proof, 

which leaves us uncertain whether World Outreach can recover substantial damages.

But that is an issue for trial. At this stage of the litigation 

we can only affirm the grant of partial summary judgment in 

favor of World Outreach (regarding the attorneys’ fees it 

sought as compensation for having to defend itself against a 

frivolous suit by the City), reverse the grant of partial summary judgment to the City, and remand the case to the district court with directions to proceed in conformity with this 

opinion.

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED AND REMANDED IN PART.

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12 Nos. 13-3669, 13-3728

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge, concurring.

Unfortunately; and I think the opinion must be stamped 

with a large “MAYBE.”

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