11th Cir.: Damages under RLUIPA, but no individual suit

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) allows recovery of monetary damages against state officials in their official capacity. However, it held that because RLUIPA was passed under Congress’s spending power, it did not subject officials to damages claims in their individual capacity. Smith v. Allen, 2007 WL 2826759 (11th Cir. Oct. 2, 2007) (No. 05-16010).

Smith is an Alabama prison inmate who sued under RLUIPA, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1 et seq. – which, among other things, imposes strict scrutiny on prison policies that burden religious expression – following denial by prison officials of various requests related to his practice of Odinism (also known as Ásatrú; for information about this Germanic neopagan tradition, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odinism). The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants on several grounds – including mootness, since Smith was no longer incarcerated. Following Smith’s re-incarceration, the appellate panel found Smith’s claims for injunctive relief no longer moot.

 

The panel observed that, “[t]o put it mildly, there is a division of authority” on whether monetary damages are ever available under RLUIPA. As examples, the court cited two district court decisions finding monetary damages unavailable; three district court decisions finding monetary damages available; and three assuming without deciding that monetary damages are available (as did the court below).

 

The panel rested its analysis on the Supreme Court’s instruction that, “where Congress had [sic] not given any guidance or clear indication of its purpose with respect to remedies, federal courts should presume the availability of all appropriate remedies,” citing Frankling v. Gwinnett Cty. Pub. Sch., 503 U.S. 60 (1992). In light of Franklin, the panel found that the RLUIPA section authorizing “appropriate relief, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(a), “is broad enough to encompass the right to monetary damages.” Congress, the panel noted, could easily have limited remedies under RLUIPA, but chose instead to use “broad, general language in crafting the remedies section.”

 

Nevertheless, because Smith was a prisoner, his right to monetary relief was limited to monetary damages under the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997(e), even though RLUIPA would otherwise authorize compensatory and punitive damages.

 

In light of these holdings – and circuit precedent holding that RLUIPA validly abrogates state sovereign immunity, Hobbs v. Roberts, 999 F.2d 1526 (11th Cir. 1993) – the panel had no difficulty finding that a claim for monetary damages was proper as against the prison officials in their official capacity. The panel noted, however, that “the district courts have been split” on whether RLUIPA authorizes suits against officials in their individual capacities, citing two district court decisions on each side of the question. The panel found its answer in the fact that RLUIPA was passed pursuant to Congress’s power under the Spending Clause.

 

The Eleventh Circuit had previously held, on more than one occasion, that “Congress cannot use its Spending Power to subject a non-recipient of federal funds, including a state official acting [in] his or her individual capacity, to private liability for monetary damages.” The court cited Hartley v. Parnell, 193 F.3d 1263 (11th Cir. 1999) (rejecting individual liability under Title IX), along with Fourth and Fifth Circuit decisions to the same effect. The panel explained that, similar to a contract, the binding force of spending requirements arises from states’ acceptance of the funds and the terms attached to them, citing Pennhurst v. State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 451 U.S. 1 (1981). Accordingly, persons who are not recipients of the specified federal funds are not subject to the corresponding conditions, and are not subject to liability on their own behalf.

 

Curiously, while the panel’s analysis stated clearly that imposing individual liability under spending laws is something Congress “cannot” do, it couched its conclusion regarding RLUIPA in more cautious terms, stating that these precedents “strongly militate[ ] against” recognition of individual capacity suits under the statute, and that “a construction of RLUIPA providing for individual liability raises substantial constitutional questions.”

 

It’s worth mentioning that Congress purported to enact RLUIPA under both the Spending Clause and the Commerce Clause. The Supreme Court previously declined to decide whether RLUIPA exceeded either of those powers, Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 718 n. 7 (2005).  The Courts of Appeal have generally upheld the law, at least as regards prisons, as a valid exercise of the spending power. See Madison v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 474 F.3d 118, 124 (4th Cir. 2006) (citing cases). In this case, the Eleventh Circuit (in a footnote) said it treated the law as “hing[ing] on Congress’s Spending Power, rather than its Commerce Clause Power,” in light of the lack of evidence that denial of religious exercise in prisons affects interstate commerce.

 

Having decided that Smith could proceed with claims for injunctive and nominal monetary relief, the panel went on to analyze the merits of his claims of religious discrimination under RLUIPA, ultimately granting summary judgment on each of them.