Opinion ID: 3025336
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: First Round of Litigation

Text: On June 8, 2000, Lighthouse filed suit in state court against Long Branch and other defendants, alleging a variety of constitutional and other violations. Long Branch removed the case to federal court. In September 2000, Congress enacted the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). Lighthouse promptly amended its complaint to add claims under sections 2(a) and 2(b) of RLUIPA (42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc(a) and (b)(1) – the “Substantial Burdens” and “Equal Terms” sections), claiming that the Ordinance violated RLUIPA both on its face and as applied. 4 Lighthouse requested 3 Rev. Brown continued to live on the premises without permission for a time. 4 Lighthouse did not appeal the District Court’s grant of summary judgment to Long Branch on its claims under the Substantial Burdens section; therefore, those claims are not before us. 7 injunctive relief as well as damages of eleven million dollars for Lighthouse and $7,777,777 for Rev. Brown. The District Court dismissed as either unexhausted or unripe all the claims attacking the Ordinance as applied and denied Lighthouse’s motion for a preliminary injunction. Lighthouse appealed the denial of the preliminary injunction. We affirmed in a nonprecedential opinion. Lighthouse Inst. for Evangelism Inc. v. Long Branch, 100 Fed. Appx. 70 (3d Cir. 2004) (“Lighthouse I”). We reasoned that the record did not show that the Ordinance on its face barred the use of the property as a church; in particular, it was not clear to us that Lighthouse would not gain approval of its intended use by applying as an “assembly hall.” Id. at 74-75. We noted also that Lighthouse had not proferred evidence that the Ordinance was not a neutral law of general applicability. Thus, under the rule of Employment Div., Dep’t of Human Res. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 879 (1990), it could not be defeated by a Free Exercise claim alone. For that reason, we concluded that Lighthouse did not have a reasonable probability of success on the merits of its claim that the Ordinance on its face violated the Free Exercise clause. Lighthouse I, 100 Fed. Appx. at 75-76. As to the RLUIPA “equal terms” claim, we noted again that it was not clear that the use of the Property as a church would not be approved under the “assembly hall” language. We also concluded that Lighthouse had “failed to provide evidence to support its contention that the secular assemblies it identified were actually similarly situated such that a meaningful 8 comparison could be made under this provision.” Id. at 77.