United States Tenth Circuit

In an action by a church claiming that the City of Boulder's denial of a special use application violated the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act's (RLUIPA) substantial burden, equal terms, and unreasonable limitations provisions, a permanent injunction in favor of plaintiff is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff presented ample evidence of similarities between its proposed project and another at trial; 2) the jury could reasonably choose to weigh evidence of the County's land use regulation effectively excluding churches more heavily than the County's record of approving special use applications; and 3) the injunction was consistent with the jury's verdict on both the RLUIPA claims and damages.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/17/2010
• Published 05/17/2010

Judges

• KELLY, Circuit Judge., Before KELLY, MURPHY, and O'BRIEN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• David Hughes, Boulder County Attorney, Boulder, CO (Jean E. Dubofsky, Esq. of the Dubofsky Law Firm, P.C., Boulder, CO; H. Bissell Carey, III, Esq., John R. Bauer, Esq. and Dwight H. Merriam, Esq. of Robinson & Cole, L.L.P., Boston, MA, with him on the briefs), for Defendant-Appellant., Kevin T. Baine of William & Connolly, LLP, Washington, D.C. (Eva Petko Esber and Curtis J. Mahoney of Williams & Connolly, LLP, Washington, D.C.; Eric Rassbach and Lori Windham of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, Washington, D.C.; J. Thomas Macdonald of Otten, Johnson, Robinson, Neff & Ragonetti, P.C., Denver, CO, with him on the brief), for Plaintiff-Appellee., Lowell Sturgill, Attorney, Appellate Staff, Civil Division of Department of Justice (Tony West, Assistant Attorney General, Troy A. Eid, United States Attorney, and Michael S. Raab, Attorney, Appellate Staff, Civil Division, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., with him on the brief), for Intervenor-Appellee the United States of America., Beth A. Dickhaus, Hall & Evans, L.L.C., Geoffrey T. Wilson, Colorado Municipal League, Denver, CO, Devala A. Janardan, International Municipal Lawyers Association, Bethesda, MD, and Lars Etzkorn, Center for Federal Relations National League of Cities, Washington, D.C., filed an Amicus Curiae brief for Colorado Counties, Inc., Colorado Municipal League, International Municipal Lawyers Association, and National League of Cities, in Support of Defendant-Appellant., Deborah M. Rosenthal and Brenna Moorhead, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, San Francisco, CA, filed an Amici Curiae brief for American Planning Association & the Colorado Chapter of the American Planning Association in Support of Defendant-Appellant., Robert L. Greene, Storzer & Greene, P.L.L.C., New York, NY, and Edward R. McNicholas, Patrick K. O'Keefe, and Richard H. Menard, Jr., Sidley & Austin, LLP, Washington, D.C., filed an Amici Curiae brief for American Jewish Congress, the National Council of Churches, the Queens Federation of Churches, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and the National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom in Support of Plaintiff-Appellee., Eric V. Hall and L. Martin Nussbaum, Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons LLP, Colorado Springs, CO, filed an Amici Curiae brief for Archdiocese of Denver, Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, Association of Christian Schools International, Cherry Hills Community Church, Christian & Missionary Alliance, Colorado Christian University, Diocese of Colorado Springs, Episcopal Diocese of Colorado, Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming, Evangelical Christian Credit Union, First Presbyterian Church of Colorado Springs, General Conference of the Church of God (Seventh Day), New Life Church, O Centro EspiritaBeneficente UniaoDo Vegetal, Regis University, Village Seven Presbyterian Church, in Support of Plaintiff-Appellee.