Supreme Court Will Not Review Judgment Against Boulder County in Church Case

Posted by Dimitri Adloff on January 14, 2011

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider a constitutional challenge to the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), leaving intact a federal jury’s verdicts that Boulder County, Colorado had violated three separate provisions of the statute in its processing and denial of a 2004 special use application filed by Rocky Mountain Christian Church of Niwot, Colorado.

Following a trial in November of 2008, the jury found that the county treated the church unfairly in the land use process compared to a similarly situated secular school, imposed a substantial burden on the church’s exercise of religion, and unreasonably limited the ability of churches to locate within the county.  Based upon the verdicts, the district court then entered an injunction directing the county to approve the church’s 2004 application to expand its Niwot facility which is used both as a church and a school.

The Tenth Circuit upheld the jury verdicts and injunction in July of 2010.  The Supreme Court denied the county’s petition for certiorari, meaning it will not review the Tenth Circuit’s decision.  In two separate decisions, the church has also been awarded approximately $1,450,000 for attorneys’ fees incurred by its trial counsel, Otten, Johnson, Robinson, Neff & Ragonetti, P.C. of Denver, and The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a Washington D.C. based law firm, as well as its lead appellate counsel, Williams & Connolly LLP of Washington, D.C.

Alan Ahlgrim, Lead Pastor of the church, said “We’re grateful that the legal process is now done and we have been vindicated by yet a third court.”  He noted that during the application process the church had spent countless hours and great sums of money trying to comply with the county’s requirements and to address concerns of the church’s neighbors.  “The expanded facility will be a benefit both for the congregation and the entire Niwot community,” he said.

Kevin Baine of Williams & Connolly said he was not surprised by the Supreme Court’s decision not to review the case because “both lower courts had upheld the jury’s finding that the church had been treated less favorably than a secular school in the same position.”  According to Tom Macdonald of the Otten Johnson firm, the jury heard extensive evidence comparing the county’s treatment of the applications filed by the church and the Alexander Dawson School, which was also located on land with the same zoning and comprehensive plan designations as the church’s property and which received approval of an expansion similar in size to total project size sought by the church and that included a gymnasium of roughly the same size as the church requested.

Macdonald said the unreasonable limitation verdict was based upon evidence that the county made it more difficult for churches to operate in the county, had effectively left few sites for church construction and had told a synagogue it could have only 100 seats because the county did not want any more mega churches.  The substantial burden claim was based upon evidence that space constraints had inhibited the church’s growth and outreach to new members in a number of ways, he said.

RLUIPA was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 2000.  “This case demonstrates the ongoing need for civil rights laws like RLUIPA that protect people of all faiths,” according to Eric Rassbach of the Becket Fund.  “It is also a testimony to the American commitment to religious freedom for all,” he said.

For additional information contact Tom Macdonald (303-575-7520; mac@ottenjohnson.com); Kevin Baine, (202-434-5010; kbaine@wc.com); or Eric Rassbach (202-349-7214; erassbach@becketfund.org).

Colorado Supreme Court: Liberal Rules for Petitions and Admission of Evidence in Condemnation Cases.

Posted by Bill Kyriagis on October 21, 2010

The Colorado Supreme Court’s October 18, 2010 decision in Bly v. Story clarifies two issues with respect to condemnation proceedings in Colorado.  Bly involved a private party’s condemnation of an easement for a private way of necessity over a neighbor’s driveway.  The court, construing C.R.S. § 38-1-102(1), held that a metes and bounds legal description and specification of the particular purpose of the condemnation is not required in a condemnation petition.  Applied to the facts, the court found that a “general description,” along with a map that made the location of the proposed easement clear, was sufficient.  With respect to the proposed use, the court found that, for a private condemnation, mere recitation of any of the purposes listed in C.R.S. § 38-1-102(3) is sufficient.

Though this suggests that the rules for the sufficiency of driveway.jpgcondemnation petitions are fairly liberal, in Bly, a metes and bounds description, and a more detailed explanation of the nature of the proposed use of the easement were provided during discovery and/or in trial testimony.  Accordingly, while a somewhat vague petition may survive a motion to dismiss, condemnors would probably be well-advised to include more specifics in their petitions, if possible, and such information should definitely be supplied at some point during the course of the proceeding. 

Bly also addressed the admissibility of valuation evidence in a condemnation case.  The owners of the condemned land sought to introduce evidence of the cost of replacement of the driveway at issue, but the trial court refused to admit the evidence.  Even though the relationship between the evidence and the ultimate issue—the value of the easement—was tenuous, the Colorado Supreme Court concluded that the evidence should have been admitted.  However, in the circumstances, the court found that the failure to admit the evidence was harmless error. 

What is potentially important for future cases is the court’s clear statement of very liberal rules of admissibility of various forms of valuation evidence in a condemnation trial.  Depending on the facts of the case, some evidence may be entitled to more weight than others, but:

The evidentiary rules applicable to a trial for an award of just compensation are expansive, and all evidence relevant to the determination of market value of the condemned property is admissible.

Photo by normanack (Flickr)