Posts Tagged ‘section 1983’
Landor v. Dept. of Corrections: Supreme Court Rules Against RLUIPA Individual Capacity Damages Actions
Section 1983 and Free Exercise Claims for Damages
Violations of the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, like violations of many of the provisions of the Bill of Rights, are actionable for damages under section 1983 against individual state and local government officials in their individual capacities. When such Free Exercise violations involve clear discrimination against religion, the outcomes are ordinarily favorable to the plaintiffs. When they don’t involve such discrimination, then under the leading Free Exercise Clause decision, Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872 (1990), the outcomes are not always so clearcut. Recall that Smith, written by Justice Scalia, mandated the use of rational basis review: because there was a neutral and generally applicable criminal law prohibiting the use of certain controlled substances, the government in Smith did not really have to justify its refusal to exempt religiously motivated drug use from its general prohibition of drug use. A rational basis was sufficient.
The Gradual Erosion of Smith
However, the Supreme Court has become increasing uncomfortable with Smith’s rational basis test in situations involving purportedly neutral and generally applicable rules regulating conduct. In particular, see Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo, 141 S. Ct. 63 (2020), finding a “strong showing” that the plaintiffs, who challenged the New York governor’s executive order imposing serious restrictions on attendance at religious services in certain zones because of Covid-19, were likely to prevail. See also Tandon v. Newsom, 141 S. Ct. 1294 (2021), applying “most favored nation” treatment to religious services during the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus, Free Exercise Clause claims are increasingly receiving favorable treatment by the current Supreme Court despite Smith. Most recently, for example, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, 146 S. Ct. — (2025), the Supreme Court held that parents of public elementary school students have a Free Exercise Clause right to opt out of a school board’s introduction of “LGBTQ+ inclusive” storybooks into classroom instruction. Nevertheless, despite this increasingly favorable treatment by the Court of Free Exercise claims, success for plaintiffs is not guaranteed when the plaintiffs use section 1983 to seek damages for Free Exercise Clause violations.
A Potential RLUIPA Workaround Now Rejected in Landor v. Dept. of Corrections
But there are two kinds of religion cases in which rational basis clearly does not apply: cases involving religious claims brought by owners of property challenging state and local government land use decisions, and prison inmates challenging state and local government conditions of confinement that allegedly infringe on their religious beliefs and behavior. The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C.A. § 2000cc, explicitly applies strict scrutiny to certain land use and prison decisions affecting religion.
In light of this, the question was whether RLUIPA, with its strict scrutiny, provided for its own (independent of section 1983) action for damages against individual state and local government officials in their individual capacity. The Supreme Court, to my surprise, answered this question in the negative in Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety, 147 S. Ct. — (2026), aff’g, 82 F.4th 337, 339 (5th Cir. 2023).
The Landor Decisions in the Fifth Circuit and in the Supreme Court
Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety involved a prison haircut administered by prison officers to the plaintiff Rastafarian in clear violation of RLUIPA. The Fifth Circuit said: “The question presented [in the petition to the Fifth Circuit] is whether … [RLUIPA] provides for money damages against officials sued in their individual capacities. Because we’ve already answered that question in the negative, we AFFIRM.” The Fifth Circuit rejected the former state prisoner’s argument that the Supreme Court’s RFRA decision in Tanzin v. Tanvir, 141 S. Ct. 486 (2020), holding that RFRA violations are actionable against federal officials sued for damages in their individual capacities, required a different result here: RFRA was a different federal statute that was enacted under section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, unlike RLUIPA that was enacted under the Spending and Commerce Clauses. Thereafter, the Fifth Circuit denied a petition for rehearing and for rehearing en banc, with eleven voting against rehearing and six voting in favor.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari and affirmed in an opinion by Justice Gorsuch. The Court ruled that the plaintiff could not sue the defendant prison officers in their individual capacities because they had not entered into any voluntary and knowing agreement with the federal government to answer private suits under RLUIPA, as required by the Spending Clause. “Under the Spending Clause, Congress lacks regulatory authority to impose liability on [the officers] directly and must depend instead on consent.” The Court rejected the plaintiff’s various arguments, including one based on the Necessary and Proper Clause, that the lack of the individual prison officers’ voluntary and knowing consent did not matter. Thus, according to the majority, RLUIPA’s provision for “appropriate relief” against persons acting under color of state law authorized only injunctive relief.
The Dissenters in Landor
Justice Jackson, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, dissented. They maintained that the majority erred in “adopt[ing] the peculiar position that Congress is powerless to create, and a State is powerless to accept, the natural next step [in accommodating ‘RLUIPA’s substantive accommodating religious freedom’]: a damages remedy against officials who violate that directive.” Justice Jackson criticized this “severance of rights and remedies [as] a slight of hand [that] comes by way of the majority’s full-throated endorsement of a contract analogy even though what secures the rights at issue is not a contract but a law.” Moreover, the Court’s decision in Tanzin v. Tanvir, dealing with RFRA’s “materially identical” language, controlled: its reasoning applied with even more force to RLUIPA. And the differences in the sources of Congressional power for RFRA and RLUIPA should make no difference.
Comments
I must admit I am surprised by the result in Landor. Very seldom do plaintiffs making religion-based claims these days lose in the Supreme Court. I also do not find persuasive the reasoning of the majority insofar as it used a contract analogy mandated (in its view) by the Supremacy Clause. And so far as I recall of the broad scope of the Necessary and Proper Clause power conferred on Congress, this constituted another basis for authorizing individual capacity damages actions under RLUIPA.
Finally, I am going out on a limb now but I think that Landor indicates that the Supreme Court will very soon (in the 2026 Term?) revisit Smith, as several Justices have suggested, and finally overrule it. If I am correct, then plaintiffs like the Landor plaintiff will be able to use section 1983, the Free Exercise Clause and strict scrutiny to challenge alleged religious discrimination.
Rooker-Feldman Applies Even Where State Court Decisions Are Not Final: T.M. v. University of Maryland Medical System
The Rooker-Feldman Question Presented in University of Maryland Medical System
In its 2025 Term, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in a Fourth Circuit case, T.M. v. University of Maryland Medical System, 139 F.4th 344, 353-354 (4th Cir. 2025), cert granted, 147 S. Ct.— (12-5-25)(No. 25-197), aff’d, 147 S. Ct. – (2026), to deal with the following Question Presented: “Whether the Rooker-Feldman doctrine can be triggered by a state-court decision that remains subject to further review in state court.” The Court, in an opinion for the Court by Justice Sotomayor, answered in the affirmative, with Justice Thomas concurring, and Justice Barrett, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kagan and Gorsuch, dissenting.
The Fourth Circuit’s Decision
In this case, a patient and her parents sought to invalidate a state court’s consent order basing her release from involuntary commitment on compliance with certain conditions. The Fourth Circuit ruled that the district court correctly dismissed this § 1983 complaint under Rooker-Feldman, pointing out that the case “bears an uncanny resemblance to Rooker” which similarly sought to undo a state court judgment. It did not matter that this case involved a consent order which was itself challenged as unconstitutional; the plaintiff was still a state court loser. And even though plaintiff won in one state court, that state court case did not involve the court order that plaintiff now argued was unconstitutional. Finally, the Fourth Circuit rejected the plaintiff’s argument that Rooker-Feldman should not apply here because there was no final state court judgment. The court explained: “[W]e agree with the Sixth and Eighth Circuits that Rooker-Feldman is not limited to situations when a federal court plaintiff no longer has any recourse within the state system.” There was no “stealth fifth requirement for invoking the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.”
The Supreme Court’s Decision
Affirming, the Supreme Court explained that this case involved the “straightforward application of the logic and reasoning underlying Rooker-Feldman.” The plaintiff here complained of injuries caused by the state court judgment itself, by arguing that the consent order violated her federal and state due process rights and was entered into under duress ten days before the federal lawsuit was filed. This was the “paradigm” Rooker-Feldman situation.
The Court went on to reject the plaintiff’s argument that a new requirement should be added to Rooker-Feldman, namely, that it should apply only to final judgments entered by the highest court of the relevant state. It concluded that this proposed rule was “inconsistent with the Court’s precedents, risks producing anomalous results, and undermines federalism interests.” Instead, the Court emphasized that Rooker-Feldman was, and should continue to be, grounded on the functional distinction between original federal court jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction over state court judgments under 28 U.S.C. § 1257. Contrary to the plaintiff’s argument and the dissenters’ position, Rooker-Feldman cases were not akin to collateral attacks brought under a federal district court’s original jurisdiction pursuant to § 1331.
The Concurring and Dissenting Opinions
Justice Thomas concurred, agreeing with the majority that Rooker-Feldman was soundly based on the “simple legal proposition that only this Court may exercise appellate jurisdiction over state-court judgments.” Justice Barrett, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Kagan and Gorsuch, dissented, arguing that Rooker-Feldman should not apply when the underlying state court action remains pending. The seven Courts of Appeals that had previously so ruled “were right to hold the line. … Because Rooker-Feldman stands on shaky ground, we have consciously kept its footprint small. … [S]o we should make the doctrine no larger.”
The dissenters also rejected the majority’s argument that federalism principles were promoted by applying Rooker-Feldman to non-final state court judgments, particularly since the plaintiff’s suit was brought under § 1983, which had transformed traditional concepts of federalism. For this and other reasons, the majority’s ruling “muddied waters that were hardly clear to begin with.” Finally, the dissenters emphasized that, regardless of the majority’s decision in this case, the Rooker-Feldman doctrine’s scope should be narrow.
Comment
The (slim) majority got it right because the rationale of Rooker-Feldman, that federal courts do not have appellate jurisdiction over state court decisions, applies with full force to state court decisions that are not final. On the other hand, the dissenters were correct in insisting that Rooker-Feldman, at its best incredibly arcane and frequently difficult to apply consistently, should be narrow in scope.
For much more on Rooker-Feldman, including collected circuit court decisions, see §§ 1:26-1:30 in Nahmod, Civil Rights & Civil Liberties Litigation: The Law of Section 1983 (2025 edition)(2026 edition forthcoming)(West/Westlaw).
Nahmod Law 