CALVARY CHAPEL DAYTON VALLEY v. SISOLAK

Supreme Court

TOP

Dissent

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 19A1070

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CALVARY CHAPEL DAYTON VALLEY v. STEVE SISOLAK, GOVERNOR OF NEVADA, et al.

on application for injunctive relief

[July 24, 2020]

Justice Gorsuch, dissenting from denial of application for injunctive relief.

This is a simple case. Under the Governor’s edict, a 10-screen “multiplex” may host 500 moviegoers at any time. A casino, too, may cater to hundreds at once, with perhaps six people huddled at each craps table here and a similar number gathered around every roulette wheel there. Large numbers and close quarters are fine in such places. But churches, synagogues, and mosques are banned from admitting more than 50 worshippers—no matter how large the building, how distant the individuals, how many wear face masks, no matter the precautions at all. In Nevada, it seems, it is better to be in entertainment than religion. Maybe that is nothing new. But the First Amendment prohibits such obvious discrimination against the exercise of religion. The world we inhabit today, with a pandemic upon us, poses unusual challenges. But there is no world in which the Constitution permits Nevada to favor Caesars Palace over Calvary Chapel.

TOP

Dissent

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 19A1070

_________________

CALVARY CHAPEL DAYTON VALLEY v. STEVE SISOLAK, GOVERNOR OF NEVADA, et al.

on application for injunctive relief

[July 24, 2020]

Justice Gorsuch, dissenting from denial of application for injunctive relief.

TOP

Dissent

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

_________________

No. 19A1070

_________________

CALVARY CHAPEL DAYTON VALLEY v. STEVE SISOLAK, GOVERNOR OF NEVADA, et al.

on application for injunctive relief

[July 24, 2020]

Justice Kavanaugh, dissenting from denial of application for injunctive relief.

I join Justice Alito’s dissent in full and respectfully add these further comments.

Under its current reopening plan, Nevada allows restaurants, bars, casinos, and gyms to grant entrance to up to 50% of their total occupancy limit—no matter how many people that may be. For example, a casino with a 500-person occupancy limit may let in up to 250 people. By contrast, places of worship may only take in a maximum of 50 people, without exception, regardless of the occupancy cap. So unlike a casino next door, a church with a 500-person occupancy limit may let in only 50 people, not 250 people. Nevada has offered no persuasive justification for that overt discrimination against places of worship. The risk of COVID–19 transmission is at least as high at restaurants, bars, casinos, and gyms as it is at religious services. Indeed, people congregating in restaurants, bars, casinos, and gyms often linger at least as long as they do at religious services. And given the safety measures that Calvary Chapel and other places of worship are following—including social distancing, mask wearing, and certain additional voluntary measures—it is evident that people interact with others at restaurants, bars, casinos, and gyms at least as closely as they do at religious services.

In my view, Nevada’s discrimination against religious services violates the Constitution. To be clear, a State’s closing or reopening plan may subject religious organizations to the same limits as secular organizations. And in light of the devastating COVID–19 pandemic, those limits may be very strict. But a State may not impose strict limits on places of worship and looser limits on restaurants, bars, casinos, and gyms, at least without sufficient justification for the differential treatment of religion. As I will explain, Nevada has thus far failed to provide a sufficient justification, and its current reopening plan therefore violates the First Amendment.

In Part I, I will explain how this case fits into the Court’s broader religion jurisprudence. In Part II, I will explain why Nevada’s treatment of religious organizations is unconstitutional under the Court’s precedents.

I

Religion cases are among the most sensitive and challenging in American law. Difficulties can arise at the outset because the litigants in religion cases often disagree about how to characterize a law. They may disagree about whether a law favors religion or discriminates against religion. They may disagree about whether a law treats religion equally or treats religion differently. They may disagree about what it means for a law to be neutral toward religion.

The definitional battles over what constitutes favoritism, discrimination, equality, or neutrality can influence, if not decide, the outcomes of religion cases. But the parties to religion cases and the judges deciding those cases often do not share a common vocabulary or common background principles. And that disconnect can muddy the analysis, build resentment, and lead to litigants and judges talking past one another.

In my view, some of the confusion and disagreement can be averted by first identifying and distinguishing four categories of laws: (1) laws that expressly discriminate against religious organizations; (2) laws that expressly favor religious organizations; (3) laws that do not classify on the basis of religion but apply to secular and religious organizations alike; and (4) laws that expressly treat religious organizations equally to some secular organizations but better or worse than other secular organizations. As I will explain, this case involving Nevada’s reopening plan falls into the fourth category.

First are laws that expressly discriminate against religious organizations because of religion. The recent Espinoza case fell into that category. Espinoza v. Montana Dept. of Revenue, ante, p. ___. The State of Montana provided tax credits to those who contributed to private school scholarship organizations. But there was a significant catch: Families eligible for scholarship funds could use those funds only at secular private schools, not religious private schools. Cases like that are straightforward examples of religious discrimination. And as a general rule, laws that discriminate against religion are, in the Court’s words, “odious to our Constitution.” Espinoza, ante, at 22 (internal quotation marks omitted); see Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 582 U. S. ___ (2017); Good News Club v. Milford Central School, 533 U. S. 98 (2001); Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U. S. 819 (1995); Larson v. Valente, 456 U. S. 228 (1982); McDaniel v. Paty, 435 U. S. 618, 629 (1978) (Brennan, J., concurring in judgment); see also Murphy v. Collier, 587 U. S. ___ (2019) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring in grant of application for stay); cf. Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah, 508 U. S. 520 (1993).

Second are laws that expressly favor religious organizations over secular organizations. Examples include cases where a legislature affords religious organizations certain accommodations, exemptions, or benefits that are not available to secular organizations. The legislature might, for example, grant religious organizations a property tax exemption that is not available to secular organizations. Cf. Walz v. Tax Comm’n of City of New York, 397 U. S. 664 (1970). Or the legislature might authorize accommodations for certain religious individuals (but not secular individuals) that relieve them from the burdens of otherwise-applicable laws, such as the draft. See Gillette v. United States, 401 U. S. 437 (1971). Those kinds of accommodations or exemptions can sometimes trigger Establishment Clause challenges because of the apparent favoritism of religion. See generally American Legion v. American Humanist Assn., 588 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring); see also Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709 (2005); Board of Ed. of Kiryas Joel Village School Dist. v. Grumet, 512 U. S. 687, 722 (1994) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment); Corporation of Presiding Bishop of Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints v. Amos, 483 U. S. 327 (1987).

Third are laws that apply to religious and secular organizations alike without making any classification on the basis of religion. For example, a city fire code may require sprinklers in all buildings that can hold more than 100 people. A law like that would cover buildings owned by religious organizations and buildings owned by secular organizations. Those kinds of laws on their face present no impermissible discrimination or favoritism.

To be sure, those kinds of laws, although not differentiating between religious and secular organizations, can still sometimes impose substantial burdens on religious exercise. If so, a religious organization may seek an exemption in court (if not also in the legislature) to the extent available under federal or state law and permissible under the Establishment Clause. See, e.g., Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, ante, p. ___; Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal, 546 U. S. 418 (2006). Or a religious organization may contend that the facially neutral law was actually motivated by animus against religion and is unconstitutional on that ground. See Lukumi, 508 U. S. 520.

Fourth are laws—like Nevada’s in this case—that supply no criteria for government benefits or action, but rather divvy up organizations into a favored or exempt category and a disfavored or non-exempt category. Those laws provide benefits only to organizations in the favored or exempt category and not to organizations in the disfavored or non-exempt category.

For example, consider a zoning law that places some secular organizations (apartment buildings, small retail businesses, restaurants, banks, etc.) in a favored or exempt zoning category, and places some secular organizations (office buildings, large retail businesses, movie theaters, music venues, etc.) in a disfavored or non-exempt zoning category. Suppose that religious properties arguably could be considered similar to some of the secular properties in both categories. What, then, are the constitutional limits and requirements with respect to how the legislature may categorize religious organizations?

In those circumstances, the Court’s precedents make clear that the legislature may place religious organizations in the favored or exempt category rather than in the disfavored or non-exempt category without causing an Establishment Clause problem. See, e.g., Walz, 397 U. S., at 696 (opinion of Harlan, J.) (“[T]he critical question is whether the circumference of legislation encircles a class so broad that it can be fairly concluded that religious institutions could be thought to fall within the natural perimeter”); Texas Monthly, Inc. v. Bullock, 489 U. S. 1, 14 (1989) (plurality opinion) (expressing approval of subsidies “conferred upon a wide array of nonsectarian groups as well as religious organizations in pursuit of some legitimate secular end”); Concerned Citizens of Carderock v. Hubbard, 84 F. Supp. 2d 668 (Md. 2000) (State may place religious organizations in favored zoning category along with some secular organizations).

The converse free-exercise or equal-treatment question is whether the legislature is required to place religious organizations in the favored or exempt category rather than in the disfavored or non-exempt category. The Court’s free-exercise and equal-treatment precedents also supply an answer to that question: Unless the State provides a sufficient justification otherwise, it must place religious organizations in the favored or exempt category. See Laycock, The Remnants of Free Exercise, 1990 S. Ct. Rev. 1, 49–50 (explaining how this Court’s precedents grant “something analogous to most-favored nation status” to religious organizations).

In Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore. v. Smith, 494 U. S. 872 (1990), for example, the Court explained that “where the State has in place a system of individual exemptions, it may not refuse to extend that system to cases of religious hardship without compelling reason.” Id., at 884 (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis added); see also Lukumi, 508 U. S., at 537–538. Likewise, then-Judge Alito stated that the First Amendment required a police department to exempt Sunni Muslims from its no-beard policy because the police department made “exemptions from its policy for secular reasons and has not offered any substantial justification for refusing to provide similar treatment for officers who are required to wear beards for religious reasons.” Fraternal Order of Police Newark Lodge No. 12 v. Newark, 170 F. 3d 359, 360 (CA3 1999) (emphasis added).

Put simply, under the Court’s religion precedents, when a law on its face favors or exempts some secular organizations as opposed to religious organizations, a court entertaining a constitutional challenge by the religious organizations must determine whether the State has sufficiently justified the basis for the distinction.

To be clear, the Court’s precedents do not require that religious organizations be treated more favorably than all secular organizations. Rather, the First Amendment requires that religious organizations be treated equally to the favored or exempt secular organizations, unless the State can sufficiently justify the differentiation.

Stated otherwise, in these kinds of cases, the Court’s religion precedents require a basic two-step inquiry. First, does the law create a favored or exempt class of organizations and, if so, do religious organizations fall outside of that class? That threshold question does not require judges to decide whether a church is more akin to a factory or more like a museum, for example. Rather, the only question at the start is whether a given law on its face favors certain organizations and, if so, whether religious organizations are part of that favored group. If the religious organizations are not, the second question is whether the government has provided a sufficient justification for the differential treatment and disfavoring of religion. Cf. Smith, 494 U. S., at 884.

In seeking to justify the differential treatment in those kinds of cases, it is not enough for the government to point out that other secular organizations or individuals are also treated unfavorably. The point “is not whether one or a few secular analogs are regulated. The question is whether a single secular analog is not regulated.” Laycock & Collis, Generally Applicable Law and the Free Exercise of Religion, 95 Neb. L. Rev. 1, 22 (2016). To that end, the government must articulate a sufficient justification for treating some secular organizations or individuals more favorably than religious organizations or individuals. See Smith, 494 U. S., at 884. That point is subtle but absolutely critical. And if that point is not fully understood, then cases of this kind will be wrongly decided.

II

I turn then to analyzing Nevada’s rules under the Court’s precedents. As Justice Alito explains in his dissent, Nevada has now had more than four months to respond to the initial COVID–19 crisis and adjust its line-drawing as circumstances change. Yet Nevada is still discriminating against religion. Nevada applies a strict 50-person attendance cap to religious worship services, but applies a looser 50% occupancy cap to secular organizations like restaurants, bars, casinos, and gyms.

Nevada has gestured at two possible justifications for that discrimination: public health and the economy. But neither argument is persuasive on this record.

First is the State’s public health rationale. Nevada undoubtedly has a compelling interest in combating the spread of COVID–19 and protecting the health of its citizens. But it does not have a persuasive public health reason for treating churches differently from restaurants, bars, casinos, and gyms. Calvary Chapel is happy to abide by the same 50% occupancy cap or some stricter across-the-board standard, as the State sees fit, so long as the same standard applies to those secular businesses. And the Church has committed to social distancing, mask requirements, and certain voluntary safety measures.

The State has not explained why a 50% occupancy cap is good enough for secular businesses where people congregate in large groups or remain in close proximity for extended periods—such as at restaurants, bars, casinos, and gyms—but is not good enough for places of worship. Again, it does not suffice to point out that some secular businesses, such as movie theaters, are subject to the lesser of a 50-person or 50% occupancy cap. The legal question is not whether religious worship services are all alone in a disfavored category, but why they are in the disfavored category to begin with. See Smith, 494 U. S., at 884. And Nevada has not advanced a sufficient public health rationale for that decision. To reiterate, the State has substantial room to draw lines, especially in an emergency or crisis. But Nevada has not demonstrated that public health justifies taking a looser approach with restaurants, bars, casinos, and gyms and a stricter approach with places of worship.

Second is the State’s economic rationale. The State wants to jump-start business activity and preserve the economic well-being of its citizens. The State has loosened restrictions on restaurants, bars, casinos, and gyms in part because many Nevada jobs and livelihoods, as well as other connected Nevada businesses, depend on those restaurants, bars, casinos, and gyms being open and busy. It is understandable for the State to balance public health concerns against individual economic hardship. Almost every State and municipality in America is struggling with that balance. After all, if preventing transmission of COVID–19 were the sole concern, a State would presumably order almost all of its businesses to stay closed indefinitely. But the economic devastation and the economic, physical, intellectual, and psychological harm to families and individuals that would ensue (and has already ensued, to some extent) requires States to make tradeoffs that can be unpleasant to openly discuss.

With respect to those tradeoffs, however, no precedent suggests that a State may discriminate against religion simply because a religious organization does not generate the economic benefits that a restaurant, bar, casino, or gym might provide. Nevada’s rules reflect an implicit judgment that for-profit assemblies are important and religious gatherings are less so; that moneymaking is more important than faith during the pandemic. But that rationale “devalues religious reasons” for congregating “by judging them to be of lesser import than nonreligious reasons,” in violation of the Constitution. Lukumi, 508 U. S., at 537–538. The Constitution does not tolerate discrimination against religion merely because religious services do not yield a profit.

More broadly, the State insists that it is in the midst of an emergency and that it should receive deference from the courts and not be bogged down in litigation. If the courts simply enforce the constitutional prohibition against religious discrimination, however, the floodgates will not open. I agree that courts should be very deferential to the States’ line-drawing in opening businesses and allowing certain activities during the pandemic. For example, courts should be extremely deferential to the States when considering a substantive due process claim by a secular business that it is being treated worse than another business. Cf. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U. S. 11, 25–28 (1905). Under the Constitution, state and local governments, not the federal courts, have the primary responsibility for addressing COVID–19 matters such as quarantine requirements, testing plans, mask mandates, phased reopenings, school closures, sports rules, adjustment of voting and election procedures, state court and correctional institution practices, and the like.

But COVID–19 is not a blank check for a State to discriminate against religious people, religious organizations, and religious services. There are certain constitutional red lines that a State may not cross even in a crisis. Those red lines include racial discrimination, religious discrimination, and content-based suppression of speech. This Court’s history is littered with unfortunate examples of overly broad judicial deference to the government when the government has invoked emergency powers and asserted crisis circumstances to override equal-treatment and free-speech principles. The court of history has rejected those jurisprudential mistakes and cautions us against an unduly deferential judicial approach, especially when questions of racial discrimination, religious discrimination, or free speech are at stake.

Finally, the State relies on the Court’s recent temporary injunction decision in South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom, 590 U. S. ___ (2020). There, the Court considered a California limitation on crowd size at religious services. California treated religious organizations better than some secular organizations, like movie theaters, but worse than other secular organizations, such as restaurants, supermarkets, retail stores, pharmacies, hair salons, offices, factories, and the like. In my view, the State of California’s explanation, at least on that record, did not persuasively distinguish religious services from several of the favored secular organizations, particularly restaurants and supermarkets. But the Court ultimately denied the church’s request for an emergency injunction. In his concurrence, The Chief Justice appropriately emphasized both the high standard for obtaining injunctive relief in this Court and the ongoing and rapidly changing public health emergency. The Chief Justice also noted that the favored secular activities did not involve people who “congregate in large groups” or “remain in close proximity for extended periods.” Id., at ___ (opinion concurring in denial of application for injunctive relief) (slip op., at 2).

I continue to think that the restaurants and supermarkets at issue in South Bay (and especially the restaurants) pose similar health risks to socially distanced religious services in terms of proximity to others and duration of visit. I suspect that many who have frequented all three kinds of establishments in recent weeks and months would agree. So I continue to respectfully disagree with South Bay.

But accepting South Bay as a precedent, this case is much different because it involves bars, casinos, and gyms. Nevada’s COVID–19-based health distinction between (i) bars, casinos, and gyms on the one hand, and (ii) religious services on the other hand, defies common sense. As I see it, the State cannot plausibly maintain that those large secular businesses are categorically safer than religious services, or that only religious services—and not bars, casinos, and gyms—entail people congregating in large groups or remaining in close proximity for extended periods of time. In any event, the State has not yet supplied a sufficient justification for its counterintuitive distinction.

* * *

The Constitution “protects religious observers against unequal treatment.” Trinity Lutheran, 582 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 6) (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). Nevada’s 50-person attendance cap on religious worship services puts praying at churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques on worse footing than eating at restaurants, drinking at bars, gambling at casinos, or biking at gyms. In other words, Nevada is discriminating against religion. And because the State has not offered a sufficient justification for doing so, that discrimination violates the First Amendment. I would grant the Church’s application for a temporary injunction. I respectfully dissent.

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