COMPLAINT AND REQUEST FOR JURY TRIAL

mukiialice64
Complaint
February 19, 2024

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

 

PROVIDUS COUNSEL INSTITUTE, INC, and COMEAUX’S COURTYARD APARTMENTS, LLC

                                  Plaintiffs

vs.

THE CITY OF BATON ROUGE,

                                Defendant

 Case No. ______________

Honorable: _____________

 

 

 

 

 

 

COMPLAINT AND REQUEST FOR JURY TRIAL

  1. COMES NOW Plaintiffs PROVIDUS COUNSEL INSTITUTE, INC, and COMEAUX’S COURTYARD APARTMENTS, LLC, with this complaint against the Defendant THE CITY OF BATON ROUGE, and alleges:

INTRODUCTION

  1. This is a civil action brought by Plaintiffs to enforce the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc to 2000cc-5.

PARTIES

  1. Plaintiff, PROVIDUS COUNSEL INSTITUTE, INC is a LLC registered and headquartered in The City of Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge Metro Council, Parish of East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is of address 2563 Lydia Avenue, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 70808.
  2. Plaintiff COMEAUX’S COURTYARD APARTMENTS, LLC, is a LLC registered and headquartered in The City of Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge Metro Council, Parish of East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is of address 2569 Lydia Ave., Apt. 6, Baton Rouge, LA 70808.
  3. Defendant, THE CITY OF BATON ROUGE is a municipality and political subdivision of the State of Louisiana. For purposes of this complaint, references to the City include both The City of Baton Rouge, Baton Rouge Metro Council, Baton Rouge Metro Council and the Parish of East Baton Rouge, as appropriate. The City may be served through its agent ________________.

JURISDICITON AND VENUE

  1. This Court has original subject matter jurisdiction over this action pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-2(f).
  2. Venue is proper in this district under 28 U.S.C. § 1391 as Plaintiff and/or Defendant is subject to personal jurisdiction in this state. Plaintiff and/or Defendant lives within the jurisdiction of this Court. Besides, a substantial part of the acts and omissions forming the basis of these claims occurred in the Middle District of Louisiana and arose from the actions or inactions of the Defendant.

FACTS

  1. Each of the foregoing paragraphs is incorporated as if fully set forth herein.
  2. The City has the authority to regulate and restrict the use of land and structures within its borders, including granting and denying requests for rezoning.
  3. The city has an area of 86.32 square miles (223.57 km2), and a population of 2,635.3 per square mile (6825.4 km2).
  4. According to the 2020 United States census, the city had a population of 221,453, of which 37.2 % is White, 53.3% is Black, 4.1% is Hispanic (any race), 3.21% is Asian, and the remainder is Other.
  5. According to a study by the Association of Religion Data Archives in 2020, Christianity has remained the most-practiced religion for the Baton Rouge area.
  6. The city is governed by the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Council and mayor.
  7. William Brian Jones is the owner of Providus Counsel Institute, which is situate at 2563 Lydia Avenue, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 70808, which is further described as follows: CPPC Lot ID#: 930361192, Lot 7, Block 1, Tract Name: Zeeland Place. William is also the owner of Comeaux’s Courtyard Apartments, LLC, which is situate at 2569 Lydia Ave., Apt. 6, Baton Rouge, LA 70808.
  8. William is a Minister serving at the Christian Global Outreach Ministries (Minister #41598).
  9. Initially, the property existed as an investment property, commercial office (A.1).
  10. The City of Baton Rouge and the Baton Rouge Metro Council had discriminated against Plaintiffs by approving rezoning for many neighboring properties without consideration to the surrounding properties.
  11. Providus Counsel Institute is located on a property that has been in commercial operation since the 1940’s many years ahead of the neighboring properties rezoning by The City of Baton Rouge.
  12. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) prohibits the “Government [from] substantially burden[ing] a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability” unless the Government “demonstrates that application of the burden to the person—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” 42 U. S. C. §§2000bb–1(a), (b).
  13. As amended by the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), RFRA covers “any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious belief.” §2000cc–5(7)(A).
  14. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., 573 U.S. 682 (2014), the owners of three closely held for-profit corporations had sincere Christian beliefs that life begins at conception and that it would violate their religion to facilitate access to contraceptive drugs or devices that operate after that point. In separate actions, they sued HHS and other federal officials and agencies (collectively HHS) under RFRA and the Free Exercise Clause, seeking to enjoin application of the contraceptive mandate insofar as it requires them to provide health coverage for the four objectionable contraceptives.
  15. In No. 13–356, the District Court denied the Hahns and their company—Conestoga Wood Specialties—a preliminary injunction. Affirming, the Third Circuit held that a for-profit corporation could not “engage in religious exercise” under RFRA or the First Amendment, and that the mandate imposed no requirements on the Hahns in their personal capacity.
  16. In No. 13–354, the Greens, their children, and their companies—Hobby Lobby Stores and Mardel—were also denied a preliminary injunction, but the Tenth Circuit reversed. It held that the Greens’ businesses are “persons” under RFRA, and that the corporations had established a likelihood of success on their RFRA claim because the contraceptive mandate substantially burdened their exercise of religion and HHS had not demonstrated a compelling interest in enforcing the mandate against them; in the alternative, the court held that HHS had not proved that the mandate was the “least restrictive means” of furthering a compelling governmental interest.
  17. The cases were later on consolidated. Consequently, at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Court held that as applied to closely held corporations, the HHS regulations imposing the contraceptive mandate violate RFRA. RFRA applies to regulations that govern the activities of closely held for-profit corporations like Conestoga, Hobby Lobby, and Mardel.
  18. HHS argued that the companies in the said cases cannot sue because they are for-profit corporations, and that the owners cannot sue because the regulations apply only to the companies. However, HHS’s argument would leave merchants with a difficult choice: give up the right to seek judicial protection of their religious liberty or forgo the benefits of operating as corporations.
  19. RFRA’s text shows that Congress designed the statute to provide very broad protection for religious liberty and did not intend to put merchants to such a choice. It employed the familiar legal fiction of including corporations within RFRA’s definition of “persons,” but the purpose of extending rights to corporations is to protect the rights of people associated with the corporation, including shareholders, officers, and employees. Protecting the free-exercise rights of closely held corporations thus protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control them.
  20. Business practices compelled or limited by the tenets of a religious doctrine fall comfortably within the understanding of the “exercise of religion” that this Court set out in Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872, 877. Any suggestion that for-profit corporations are incapable of exercising religion because their purpose is simply to make money flies in the face of modern corporate law. Any suggestion that for-profit corporations are incapable of exercising religion because their purpose is simply to make money flies in the face of modern corporate law. States authorize corporations to pursue any lawful purpose or business, including the pursuit of profit in conformity with the owners’ religious principles. The Court has entertained RFRA and free-exercise claims brought by nonprofit corporations. See Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficiente União do Vegetal, 546 U. S. 418.
  21. Further, the Court held that also flawed is the claim that RFRA offers no protection because it only codified pre-Smith Free Exercise Clause precedents, none of which squarely recognized pre-Smith free-exercise rights for for-profit corporations. According to the Court, nothing in RFRA as originally enacted suggested that its definition of “exercise of religion” was meant to be tied to interpretations of the First Amendment. Second, if RFRA’s original text were not clear enough, the RLUIPA amendment surely dispels any doubt that Congress intended to separate the definition of the phrase from that in First Amendment case law. Third, the pre-Smith case of Gallagher v. Crown Kosher Super Market of Mass., Inc., 366 U. S. 617, suggests, if anything, that for-profit corporations can exercise religion. Finally, the results would be absurd if RFRA, a law enacted to provide very broad protection for religious liberty, merely restored the Court’s pre-Smith decisions in ossified form and restricted RFRA claims to plaintiffs who fell within a category of plaintiffs whose claims the Court had recognized before Smith.
  22. Congress provided four separate areas of relief in the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) for churches, synagogues, mosques and temples and other religious groups.
  23. The first, called the Substantial Burden prong, provides that a government may not impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that imposes a substantial burden on the religious exercise of a religious assembly or institution. The exception to this is unless the government is able to show the imposition of the burden is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest, and is the least restrictive means of furthering that interest.
  24. The second, called the Equal Terms prong, provides that no government shall impose or implement a land use regulation in a manner that treats a religious assembly or institution on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution.
  25. The third area of relief provided by Congress is the Non-Discrimination clause. This provides that a local government may not make a land use determination that discriminates against any assembly or institution on the basis of religion or religious denomination.
  26. The final area of relief under RLUIPA is the Exclusions and Unreasonable Limitations clause. It provides that a local government may not impose or implement a land use regulation that: (a) totally excludes religious assemblies from a jurisdiction; or (b) unreasonably limits religious assemblies, institutions, or structures within a jurisdiction. Where a violation of the law is established, RLUIPA provides money damages and injunctive relief as remedies.
  27. In the instant case, Plaintiffs assert that the Defendant’s conduct met the four-pronged threshold mentioned above.
  28. For purposes of RLUIPA, the City is a “government.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc- 5(4)(A)(i), (ii).
  29. Plaintiffs are a “religious assembly or ” 42 U.S.C.§ 2000cc(2)(b)(1).
  30. If the rezoning application is not granted, Plaintiffs’ members are inhibited from exercising their religion.
  31. The lack of a favroable alternative to Plaintiffs to conduct religious worship, education, and fellowship events puts a significant strain on Plaintiffs and risks causing them to break apart.
  32. On or about May 16, 2022, William Brian Jones made an application to have the property rezoned to a commercial office, religious institution (C.1) (Exhibit 1- Rezoning). It is worth noting that the property owner signed the application together with William, and William paid the requisite fees.
  33. William also made a Comprehensive Land Use Plan Amendment application on May 31, 2022, seeking to have the property converted from a Residential Neighborhood to Neighborhood Centre (Exhibit 2- Comprehensive Plan Amendment). Here, it is also important to further note that the property owner signed the application together with Plaintiff, and Plaintiff paid the requisite fees.
  34. For purposes of RLUIPA, William’s proposed use of the Subject Property constitutes “religious exercise.” 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc-5(7)(A)-(B).
  35. Defendant denied William’s rezoning application.
  36. 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc et seq protects individuals and religious assemblies and institutions from discriminatory and unduly burdensome land use regulations. Under 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(a), RLUIPA protects against substantial burdens on religious exercise. Further, the Department of Justice interprets a substantial burden on religious exercise to constitute imposing a significantly great restriction on religious use of a property (Exhibit 3- Statement of the Department of Justice on the Land Use Provisions of RLUIPA). Plaintiffs assert that the City’s denial of William’s rezoning application casts undue burden on William’s business, since it limits William’s ability to maximize the use of the property for its faith-based business.
  37. Under 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(b)(1), RLUIPA protects against unequal treatment of religious assemblies and institutions (Exhibit 3- Statement of the Department of Justice on the Land Use Provisions of RLUIPA). Plaintiffs assert that other non-faith-based institutions have not been treated so unfairly. Notably, RLUIPA defines land use regulation as a “zoning or landmarking law, or the application of such a law, that limits or restricts a claimant’s use or development of land.” See 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5(5). RLUIPA further identifies Zoning laws to include statutes, ordinances, or codes that determine what type of building or land use can be located in what areas and under what conditions.
  38. Under 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(b)(3)(B), RLUIPA protects against unreasonable limitations of religious assemblies (Exhibit 3- Statement of the Department of Justice on the Land Use Provisions of RLUIPA). It is Plaintiffs’ averment that the City has not provided sufficient justification for denying the rezoning application. The City cannot claim that the denial furthers a legitimate government interest, since the decision curtails Plaintiffs’ rights under the First Amendment, hence damaging Plaintiffs’ business.
  39. The City’s denial of William’s application for rezoning constitutes the “application” of a “land use regulation” that “limits or restricts a claimant’s use or development of land (including a structure affixed to land).” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5(5).
  40. There is no other land in the City that is suitably located for Plaintiffs.
  41. At all times relevant, the City did not have in place procedures or practices to ensure City officials were able to satisfy their obligations under RLUIPA, including but not limited to, providing RLUIPA training to City officials and staff involved in religious land use determinations, and having established procedures to address complaints concerning denials of rights under RLUIPA.
  42. It is Plaintiffs’ contention that Prior to denying AIC’s rezoning application, the City had approved zoning applications for tax-exempt religious organizations and other tax-exempt organizations.

CLAIMS FOR RELIEF

COUNT 1

RLUIPA – SUBSTANTIAL BURDEN

  1. The preceding paragraphs are fully incorporated herein.
  2. Defendant’s treatment and denial of William’s rezoning request constitutes the imposition or implementation of a land use regulation that imposes a substantial burden on AIC’s religious exercise, which burden is not in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and/or is not the least restrictive means of furthering such interest, in violation of RLUIPA, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(a)(1).

COUNT 2

RLUIPA– EQUAL TERMS

  1. The preceding paragraphs are fully incorporated herein.
  2. The City’s treatment of Plaintiffs and its denial of William’s rezoning application constitutes the imposition or implementation of a land use regulation that treated, and continues to treat, Plaintiffs on less than equal terms with a nonreligious assembly or institution, in violation of RLUIPA, 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(b)(1).

COUNT 3

DISCRIMINATION

  1. The preceding paragraphs are fully incorporated herein.
  2. The City has treated Plaintiffs and the rezoning application differently from other applications on the basis of religion or religious denomination, in violation of RLUIPA, 42 U.S.C. 2000cc(b)(2).

COUNT 4

UNREASONABLE RESTRICTION

  1. The preceding paragraphs are fully incorporated herein.
  2. RLUIPA prohibits zoning and landmarking laws that substantially burden the religious exercise of churches or other religious assemblies or institutions absent the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest. This prohibition applies in any situation where:
  3. the state or local government entity imposing the substantial burden receives federal funding;
  4. the substantial burden affects, or removal of the substantial burden would affect, interstate commerce; or
  • the substantial burden arises from the state or local government’s formal or informal procedures for making individualized assessments of a property’s uses.
  1. In addition, RLUIPA prohibits zoning and landmarking laws that:
  2. treat churches or other religious assemblies or institutions on less than equal terms with nonreligious assemblies or institutions;
  3. discriminate against any assemblies or institutions on the basis of religion or religious denomination;
  4. totally exclude religious assemblies from a jurisdiction; or
  5. unreasonably limit religious assemblies, institutions, or structures within a jurisdiction
  6. In the instant action, by denying the zoning application, the City has burdened and unreasonably restricted the religious exercise of the Plaintiffs. The City’s actions are also discriminatory against the Plaintiffs.

PRAYER FOR RELIEF

WHEREFORE, the Plaintiffs are entitled to damages from the Defendant, and they hereby pray that judgment be entered in their favor and against the Defendant as follows:

  1. Declares that the City’s policies and practices, as alleged herein, violate RLUIPA;
  2. Enjoins the City, its officers, employees, agents, successors and all other persons in concert or participation with it, from—
  3. Imposing a substantial burden on the religious exercise of Providus Counsel Institute and its members that is not narrowly tailored to further a compelling governmental interest;
  4. Treating Plaintiffs and their members on less than equal terms with nonreligious assemblies or institutions; and
  5. Discriminating against Plaintiffs and their members on the basis of religion or religious denomination.
  • Requires the City, its officers, employees, agents, successors, and all other persons in concert or participation with it, to:
    1. Take such actions as may be necessary to restore, as nearly as practicable, Plaintiffs and their members to the position they would have been in but for the City’s unlawful conduct, including but not limited to granting such approvals as are necessary to allow Plaintiffs to proceed with the use the Subject Property as a Place of Worship; and
    2. Take such actions as may be necessary to prevent the recurrence of such unlawful conduct in the future, including but not limited to, providing RLUIPA training to City personnel, establishing procedures to address complaints of RLUIPA violations, and maintaining records and submitting reports relating to RLUIPA compliance.
  1. Issue such other relief as the Court deems just and proper.

JURY DEMAND

Plaintiff hereby demands a trial by jury.

Respectfully submitted:

Dated: __________

 

______________________________

PROVIDUS COUNSEL INSTITUTE, INC

 

 

______________________________

COMEAUX’S COURTYARD APARTMENTS, LLC

CERTIFICATE OF MAILING

I, ______________, hereby certify that on [ENTER DATE], copies of the foregoing Complaint have been sent to the Defendant in the following address:

 

RESIDENT AGENT FOR SERVICE OF SUMMONS:

 

[ADDRESS]

 

 

______________________________

PROVIDUS COUNSEL INSTITUTE, INC

 

 

______________________________

COMEAUX’S COURTYARD APARTMENTS, LLC

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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