Opinion ID: 767619
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sale of Land

Text: 10 The Establishment Clause states that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion. U.S. Const. amend. I. The Establishment Clause prevents the government from promoting or affiliating with any religious doctrine or organization. See County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union, 492 U.S. 573, 590 (1989); Gonzales v. North Township, 4 F.3d 1412, 1417 (7th Cir. 1993). However, an Establishment Clause violation must be moored in government action of some sort. Capitol Square Review and Advisory Board v. Pinette, 515 U.S. 753, 779 (1995) (O'Connor, J., concurring). The district court found that the sale of the property from the City to the Fund ended any government action endorsing religion, precluding a claim that the City continues to endorse religion. Appellants Reinders and FFRF maintain that this sale was a sweetheart deal, a sham transaction concocted to circumvent the government action requirement of the Establishment Clause. For this reason, they contend that the sale is conduct that constitutes an endorsement of religion by the City. 11 The City contends that its sale of the property on which the religious statue stands effectively ends the City's religious expression. Because it is assumed that a property owner controls expression conducted on its property, we impute the views expressed on a property onto it. Thus, the location of the sign is a significant component of the message it conveys. Capitol Square, 515 U.S. at 800 (Stevens, J., dissenting); see also id. at 786 (Souter, J., concurring) ([A]n unattended display (and any message it conveys) can naturally be viewed as belonging to the owner of the land on which it stands.); City of Ladue v. Gilleo, 512 U.S. 43, 56 (1994) (Precisely because of their location, such signs provide information about the identity of the 'speaker.'). The facial result of the transaction at issue is that the City no longer owns the property where the religious expression occurs. Because we can no longer infer the City's expression from property ownership, the City claims that the sale ended its religious expression and cured any Establishment Clause violation. 12 Because of the difference in the way we treat private speech and public speech, the determination of whom we should impute speech onto is critical. For there is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect. Board of Educ. v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226, 250 (1990). Because of the dramatic difference in treatment of private religious expression and government religious expression, we recognize the effect of formal transfer of legal title to property as a transfer of imputed expression from a public seller onto a private buyer. Absent unusual circumstances, a sale of real property is an effective way for a public body to end its inappropriate endorsement of religion. We are aware, however, that adherence to a formalistic standard invites manipulation. To avoid such manipulation, we look to the substance of the transaction as well as its form to determine whether government action endorsing religion has actually ceased. 13 Reinders and FFRF cite Evans v. Newton, 382 U.S. 296, 299 (1966), and contend that weshould disregard the transfer of public property to a private organization in determining whether continued government action exists. In Evans, the Supreme Court concluded that trustees for a public park could not enforce discriminatory restrictions contained in the deed because the facts and circumstances of that case led it to conclude that the government was still intimately entangled in the operation of the park. See id. at 301. Evans was within a line of public function cases that found a continuation of state action when a set of unusual facts and circumstances demonstrated that the government remained intimately involved in exclusively public functions that had been delegated to private organizations, see, e.g., Terry v. Adams, 345 U.S. 461 (1953) (finding state action in the delegation of elective process to private groups); Marsh v. Alabama, 326 U.S. 501 (1946) (finding state action in management and ownership of company town), and the Supreme Court has noted that management of a public park is not an exclusively governmental function. See Flagg Brothers v. Brooks, 436 U.S. 149, 159 n.8 (1978) (We think that [Evans v. Newton] rests on a finding of ordinary state action under extraordinary circumstances.). Therefore, these cases remain relevant only if we find continuing and excessive involvement between the government and private citizens. To determine whether the sale of land from the state to a private organization demonstrates such involvement, we look to a number of factors and determine whether the sale effectively ended state action, based on the totality of the facts in the record. See Evans, 382 U.S. at 300. Our independent review of the facts here leads us to conclude that this sale validly extinguished any government endorsement of religion. 14 The parties stipulate that many of the typical sort of improprieties that might cause us to disregard a transaction do not exist in this case. Even though the City did not solicit alternate bids for the property, the parties agree that the sale of the property complied with the applicable Wisconsin law governing the sale of land by municipalities. See Wis. Stat. sec.sec. 27.08(2)(c), 62.23(5), 62.23(17)(b). Therefore, we need not address whether an improper sale ends state action. Because the Fund paid a fair market price for the land, we need not address whether the City has granted a religious organization a gift in the form of a sub-market rate sale price. Cf. Annunziato v. New Haven Bd. of Aldermen, 555 F.Supp. 427, 433 (D. Conn. 1982) (finding sale of property to a church for $1 constitutes a gift of remainder of fair market value in violation of Establishment Clause). Moreover, in contrast to Evans, because the City has ceased maintaining and providing electrical service for the Fund's property, there is no indication that the City is using the Fund merely as a straw purchaser, with the intention of continuing to exercise the duties of ownership. See Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830, 842 (1982) (distinguishing Evans as a situation where the State has attempted to avoid its constitutional duties by a sham arrangement which attempts to disguise provision of public services as acts of private parties.). 15 Despite uncontested facts demonstrating that the Fund has performed the necessary formalities to effect a transfer of property, paid a fair price and assumed the traditional duties of ownership, Reinders and FFRF argue that the transfer is a sham. They base their argument almost entirely on the restrictive covenant included in the deed of sale, which limits the use of the Fund's property to public park purposes. However, under Wisconsin law, reserving a covenant that will run to one's benefit will not void a land transaction. See In re Barkhausen, 125 N.W. 680, 680 (Wis. 1910). Therefore, the fact that a covenant exists will not affect the validity of the transfer. The plaintiffs do not contend that the City has made any effort to enforce this restrictive covenant. Moreover, such action would relate to the conduct of the parties following the sale of property, so at this time, we need not address whether such action would constitute an endorsement of religion in violation of the Establishment Clause. Therefore, we find no extraordinary circumstances that justify disregarding the sale for the purposes of endorsing religion, and we find that the City did not engage in government action endorsing religion by selling the property at issue to a religious organization.