Opinion ID: 1324254
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 10

Heading: This Circuit's RLUIPA Precedents

Text: Our cases interpreting the definition of substantial burden under RLUIPA have applied a similar definition to the definition employed in Bryant, 46 F.3d at 949. In applying RLUIPA, we have stated that for a land use regulation to impose a `substantial burden,' it must be `oppressive' to a `significantly great' extent. That is, a `substantial burden' on `religious exercise' must impose a significantly great restriction or onus upon such exercise. Warsoldier v. Woodford, 418 F.3d 989, 995 (9th Cir.2005) (quoting San Jose Christian College, 360 F.3d at 1034). In other words, we have defined substantial burden according to the effect of a government action on religious exercise rather than particular mechanisms by which this effect is achieved. Moreover, we recently held that a substantial burden could exist under RLUIPA in a case that involved no imposition of a penalty or deprivation of a benefit. In Shakur, 514 F.3d 878, a Muslim inmate brought a RLUIPA challenge alleging that the Arizona Department of Corrections substantially burdened his exercise of religion by refusing to provide him with a Halal or Kosher meat diet. Id. at 888-89. The imposition on Shakur was in fact relatively mild because the prison provided him with a vegetarian diet as an alternative to the ordinary meat diet. Id. at 888, 891. Nonetheless, we found that Shakur had asserted a cognizable substantial burden under RLUIPA when he alleged that the vegetarian diet he was forced to eat for lack of Halal meat gave him indigestion, thereby disrupting his religious practices. Id. at 888. Because the Arizona Department of Corrections had not imposed any penalty or withheld any benefit from Shakur based on his exercise of religion, Shakur is, like Mockaitis, flatly inconsistent with the majority opinion. In attempting to distinguish Shakur, the majority again refuses to accept the implications of its own rule. The majority claims that Shakur is a straightforward application of the Sherbert test because the policy conditioned a governmental benefit to which Shakur was otherwise entitleda meal in prisonupon conduct that would violate Shakur's religious beliefs. Maj. op. at 1078 n. 24. However, like Mockaitis, Shakur applied the ordinary meaning of the phrase substantial burden, which is inconsistent with the majority's newly minted  Sherbert test. In Sherbert, a Seventh-day Adventist was denied unemployment benefits after she was fired for refusing to work on Saturdays because, according to the state, she had fail[ed], without good cause, to accept suitable work when offered. 374 U.S. at 399-400, 83 S.Ct. 1790 (internal quotation marks omitted). In other words, the plaintiff in Sherbert was denied a government benefit, to which she was otherwise entitled, because of her religious observance. Contrary to the majority's assertions, the inmate in Shakur was not denied any government benefit to which he was otherwise entitled because of his religious observance. Shakur had a legal interest in some meal in prison, but he was never denied this interest as a consequence of his religious observance. Eating the vegetarian meals provided by the prison was permitted by Shakur's religion. Shakur had no legal interest in Halal meat meals, except to the extent the government's failure to provide them interfered with his subjective religious experience. Nonetheless, we held that the failure of the prison to provide Halal meat meals could constitute a substantial burden on Shakur's religious exercise because the vegetarian meals allegedly exacerbate[d] [Shakur's] hiatal hernia and cause[d] excessive gas that interfere[d] with the ritual purity required for [Shakur's] Islamic worship. Id. at 889. That is, although the government had in no way penalized Shakur's exercise of his religion by denying a benefit to which he was otherwise entitled, we held that RFRA may impose an affirmative duty on prison officials to provide Halal meat meals where the failure to do so harms the inmate's sense of ritual purity. Id. The provision of special meals is a government action that benefits an inmate. But this is true of virtually any religious accommodation. Thus, Shakur can only be explained as consistent with the majority's rule if the mere accommodation of religion is a governmental benefit. But such a broad rule cannot support the majority's conclusion in this case. Under such a definition, the Forest Service offers the Indians in this case a government benefit in the form of access to their sacred land and ritual materials. The Forest Service's failure to offer spiritually pure sites and materials is the equivalent of prison officials failing to offer religiously pure meals. In short, in denying the Indians' claims, the majority contends that the phrase substantial burden applies only where the government imposes sanctions or condition[s] a governmental benefit upon conduct that would violate the Plaintiffs' religious beliefs. The majority then abandons this definition in its attempts to distinguish Shakur, which did not involve the conditioning of government benefits on conduct that would violate religious beliefs. The need for such semantic contortions only highlights the degree to which the majority's rule is inconsistent with our prior case law and fails to capture the meaning of the term substantial burden.