Washington v. Gonyea, No. 11-980 (2d Cir. 2013)
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Plaintiff filed suit against New York state prison officials alleging that they substantially burdened his First Amendment right to free exercise of religion in violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), 42 U.S.C. 2000cc-1, and that they infringed his due process and First Amendment rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1983. This appeal arose when defendants instigated a disciplinary proceeding against plaintiff, an inmate and a Muslim, after an interaction in which plaintiff gave Chaboty a Quran. The court concluded that plaintiff's RLUIPA claim must fail because RLUIPA did not authorize monetary damages against state officers in their official capacities, and did not create a private right of action against state officers in their individual capacities. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's RLUIPA claim.
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11-980-cv Washington v. Gonyea 1 United States Court of Appeals 2 FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 3 August Term 2012 4 5 (Argued: June 21, 2013 6 Decided: September 10, 2013) 7 No. 11-980-cv _____________________________________ 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 ANTHONY WASHINGTON, Plaintiff-Appellant, -v.PAUL GONYEA, Deputy Superintendent of Monterey Correctional Facility, Individually and in his Official Capacity, TAMMI CHABOTY, Sergeant at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, Individually and in her Official Capacity, KEITH GRANGER, Sergeant at Livingston Correctional Facility, Individually and in his Official Capacity, Defendants-Appellees. _____________________________________ Before: LIVINGSTON and CHIN, Circuit Judges, and RAMOS, District Judge.* Appeal from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Gardephe, J.), entered January 31, 2011, dismissing PlaintiffAppellant s claim alleging that defendants substantially burdened his right to free exercise of religion in violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 ( RLUIPA ), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1. For the reasons discussed below, we hold that section 3 of RLUIPA does not provide a private right of action against state officials acting in their individual capacities. We AFFIRM the judgment of the district court as to the RLUIPA claim. MICHAEL J. BALCH, New York, NY, for PlaintiffAppellant. 35 36 * The Honorable Edgardo Ramos, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 BRIAN A. SUTHERLAND, Assistant Solicitor General of Counsel (BARBARA D. UNDERWOOD, Solicitor General, MICHAEL S. BELOHLAVEK, Senior Counsel, on the brief), for ERIC T. SCHNEIDERMAN, Attorney General of the State of New York, New York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees. PER CURIAM: 9 Plaintiff-Appellant Anthony Washington ( Washington ) appeals from a 10 judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York 11 (Gardephe, J.) , entered January 31, 2011, dismissing his pro se complaint alleging 12 that New York state prison officials Paul Gonyea ( Gonyea ), Tammi Chaboty 13 ( Chaboty ), and Keith Granger ( Granger ) substantially burdened his First 14 Amendment right to free exercise of religion in violation of the Religious Land Use and 15 Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 ( RLUIPA ), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1, and infringed 16 his due process and First Amendment rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ( § 1983 ). 17 In an accompanying summary order filed today, we affirm in part and reverse in part 18 the district court s rulings on Washington s § 1983 claims. For the reasons stated 19 below, we conclude that Washington s RLUIPA claim must fail because RLUIPA does 20 not authorize monetary damages against state officers in their official capacities, see 21 Sossamon v. Texas, 131 S. Ct. 1651 (2011), and does not create a private right of action 22 against state officers in their individual capacities.1 We therefore affirm the judgment 23 of the district court dismissing Washington s RLUIPA claim. Since Washington is no longer in the Special Housing Unit, we dismiss his RLUIPA claim for injunctive and declaratory relief as moot. See Salahuddin v. Goord, 467 F.3d 263, 272 (2d Cir. 2006); Muhammad v. City of N.Y. Dep t of Corr., 126 F.3d 119, 122-23 (2d Cir. 1997). 1 2 1 2 3 This appeal arises from an incident and subsequent disciplinary proceedings at 4 the Woodbourne Correctional Facility, where Washington was an inmate. As relevant 5 here, Defendants-Appellees Chaboty and Granger, corrections officers at Woodbourne, 6 instigated a disciplinary proceeding against Washington, a Muslim, after an 7 interaction on August 6, 2006 in which Washington gave Chaboty a Quran. Following 8 a disciplinary hearing at which Defendant-Appellee Gonyea presided, Washington was 9 found guilty of harassment and making comments of a personal nature to 10 employees, in violation of 7 N.Y.C.R.R. § 270.2(B)(8)(ii). Gonyea imposed a penalty 11 of 65 days special housing confinement and loss of rec[reation], packages, 12 commissary, phones, and special events. The New York Appellate Division, Third 13 Department ultimately annulled the disciplinary disposition in an Article 78 14 proceeding on the basis that the disposition was not supported by substantial evidence 15 and that Washington s conduct was only a continuation of a cordial relationship 16 between the officer and petitioner. Washington v. Selsky, 48 A.D.3d 864, 865 (3d Dep t 17 2008). BACKGROUND 18 Washington commenced this pro se suit in the United States District Court for 19 the Southern District of New York on November 5, 2009, alleging that Defendants- 20 Appellees unconstitutionally retaliated against him for exercising his First 21 Amendment rights to free exercise of religion and free speech and denied him due 22 process in violation of § 1983, and that Defendants-Appellees substantially burdened 23 his free exercise rights in violation of RLUIPA. Defendants each moved to dismiss the 3 1 complaint. As relevant here, the district court dismissed Washington s RLUIPA claims 2 on the ground that Washington had not adequately pled that the Defendants-Appellees 3 had placed a substantial burden---or, indeed, any burden---on his religious practice. 4 See Washington v. Chaboty, No. 09 Civ. 9199, 2011 WL 102714, at *9 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 5 10, 2011). Washington subsequently filed this timely appeal. DISCUSSION 6 7 8 Section 3 of RLUIPA provides that [n]o government shall impose a substantial 9 burden on the religious exercise [of an institutionalized person], 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc- 10 1(a), in a program or activity that receives Federal financial assistance, id. § 2000cc- 11 1(b)(1), or in a way that affects or would affect commerce with foreign nations, among 12 the several States, or with Indian tribes, id. § 2000cc-1(b)(2). RLUIPA creates an 13 express private cause of action allowing individuals to obtain appropriate relief 14 against a government. Id. § 2000cc-2(a); see Sossamon v. Texas, 131 S. Ct. at 1656. 15 The term government includes, inter alia, a State, county, municipality, or other 16 governmental entity created under the authority of a State, any branch, department, 17 agency, instrumentality, or official thereof, and any other person acting under color 18 of State law[.] 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5(4)(A). 19 In Sossamon v. Texas, the Supreme Court held that sovereign immunity 20 forecloses the availability of money damages as a remedy against states and state 21 actors in their official capacities under RLUIPA. 131 S. Ct. at 1663 ( States, in 22 accepting federal funding, do not consent to waive their sovereign immunity to private 23 suits for money damages under RLUIPA because no statute expressly and 4 1 unequivocally includes such a waiver. ). Washington therefore cannot sustain his 2 RLUIPA claim against Defendants-Appellees in their official capacities. 3 Washington has also sued Defendants-Appellees in their individual capacities. 4 While Sossamon did not decide whether RLUIPA allows individual-capacity suits 5 against state officials, every circuit to have addressed the issue has held that it does 6 not. See Nelson v. Miller, 570 F.3d 868, 886-89 (7th Cir. 2009); Rendelman v. Rouse, 7 569 F.3d 182, 188-89 (4th Cir. 2009); Sossamon v. Lone Star State of Tex., 560 F.3d 8 316, 328-29 (5th Cir. 2009), aff d on other grounds by 131 S. Ct. 1651 (2011); Smith v. 9 Allen, 502 F.3d 1255, 1271-75 (11th Cir. 2007), abrogated on other grounds by 10 Sossamon, 131 S. Ct. 1651. 11 We adopt the reasoning of our sister circuits in concluding that RLUIPA does 12 not provide a cause of action against state officials in their individual capacities 13 because the legislation was enacted pursuant to Congress spending power, see 42 14 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1(b)(1), which allows the imposition of conditions, such as individual 15 liability, only on those parties actually receiving the state funds. See, e.g., Smith, 502 16 F.3d at 1272-75 ( [I]t is clear that the contracting party in the RLUIPA context is the 17 state prison institution that receives federal funds; put another way, these institutions 18 are the grant recipients that agree to be amenable to suit as a condition to receiving 19 funds but their individual employees are not recipients of federal funding. );2 cf. As we have previously observed, Spending clause legislation is much in the nature of a contract, and [] its contractual nature has implications for our construction of the scope of available remedies. Henrietta D. v. Bloomberg, 331 F.3d 261,285 (2d Cir. 2003) (quoting Barnes v. Gorman, 536 U.S. 181, 186-87 (2002)). 2 5 1 Davis ex rel LaShonda D. v. Monroe Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 526 U.S. 629, 640-41 (1999) 2 (holding that for Title IX, enacted pursuant to Congress authority under the Spending 3 Clause, [t]he Government s enforcement power may only be exercised against the 4 funding recipient ). Indeed, [t]o decide otherwise would create liability on the basis 5 of a law never enacted by a sovereign with the power to affect the individual rights at 6 issue i.e., the state receiving the federal funds, Sossamon, 560 F.3d at 329 and this 7 would raise serious questions regarding whether Congress had exceeded its authority 8 under the Spending Clause, Nelson, 570 F.3d at 889. Cf. Rendelman, 569 F.3d at 189 9 (explaining that even if Congress could condition acceptance of federal funds on a state 10 subjecting its officials to individual liability, Congress did not signal with sufficient 11 clarity [an] intent to do so under RLUIPA). Accordingly, as a matter of statutory 12 interpretation and following the principle of constitutional avoidance, we hold that 13 RLUIPA does not create a private right of action against state officials in their 14 individual capacities. We affirm dismissal of Washington s RLUIPA claim on this 15 ground. 16 We note that Congress invoked its power to regulate interstate and foreign 17 commerce as an alternative basis for enforcing section 3 of RLUIPA. See 42 U.S.C. § 18 2000cc-1(b) ( This section applies in any case in which . . . (2) the substantial burden 19 affects . . . commerce with foreign nations, among the several states, or with Indian 20 tribes. ); Nelson, 570 F.3d at 886; Rendelman, 569 F.3d at 189. Here, however, 21 Washington has pled no facts indicating that the restriction of his religious rights had 22 any effect on interstate or foreign commerce. The commerce clause basis for RLUIPA 6 1 is therefore not properly before the Court, and we decline to decide whether RLUIPA 2 authorizes individual-capacity suits under the imprimatur of the commerce clause. 3 CONCLUSION 4 For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court in 5 dismissing Washington s RLUIPA claim. 6 7
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