Washington v. Gonyea

11-980-cv
Washington v. Gonyea
United States Court of Appeals 1
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT 2
3
August Term 2012 4
5
(Argued: June 21, 2013 Decided: September 10, 2013) 6
7
No. 11-980-cv 8
_____________________________________ 9
10
ANTHONY WASHINGTON, 11
Plaintiff-Appellant, 12
13
-v.- 14
15
PAUL G ONYEA , Deputy Superintendent of Monterey Correctional Facility, 16
Individually and in his Official Capacity, TAMMI CHABOTY , Sergeant at Woodbourne 17
Correctional Facility, Individually and in her Official Capacity, K EITH G RANGER , 18
Sergeant at Livingston Correctional Facility, Individually and in his Official 19
Capacity, 20
Defendants-Appellees. 21
_____________________________________ 22
23
Before: LIVINGSTON and CHIN, Circuit Judges, and RAMOS , District Judge. *
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25
Appeal from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern 26
District of New York (Gardephe, J.), entered January 31, 2011, dismissing Plaintiff- 27
Appellant’s claim alleging that defendants substantially burdened his right to free 28
exercise of religion in violation of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons 29
Act of 2000 (“RLUIPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1. For the reasons discussed below, we 30
hold that section 3 of RLUIPA does not provide a private right of action against state 31
officials acting in their individual capacities. We AFFIRM the judgment of the district 32
court as to the RLUIPA claim. 33
34
M ICHAEL J. BALCH, New York, NY, for Plaintiff- 35
Appellant. 36
* The Honorable Edgardo Ramos, of the United States District Court for the Southern District
of New York, sitting by designation.

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BRIAN A. SUTHERLAND, Assistant Solicitor General 1
of Counsel (BARBARA D. UNDERWOOD, Solicitor 2
General, M ICHAEL S. BELOHLAVEK, Senior Counsel, 3
on the brief), for ERIC T. SCHNEIDERMAN, Attorney 4
General of the State of New York, New York, NY, 5
for Defendants-Appellees. 6
7
PER CURIAM : 8
Plaintiff-Appellant Anthony Washington (“Washington”) appeals from a 9
judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York 10
(Gardephe, J.) , entered January 31, 2011, dismissing his pro se complaint alleging 11
that New York state prison officials Paul Gonyea (“Gonyea”), Tammi Chaboty 12
(“Chaboty”), and Keith Granger (“Granger”) substantially burdened his First 13
Amendment right to free exercise of religion in violation of the Religious Land Use and 14
Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (“RLUIPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1, and infringed 15
his due process and First Amendment rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (“§ 1983”). 16
In an accompanying summary order filed today, we affirm in part and reverse in part 17
the district court’s rulings on Washington’s § 1983 claims. For the reasons stated 18
below, we conclude that Washington’s RLUIPA claim must fail because RLUIPA does 19
not authorize monetary damages against state officers in their official capacities, see 20
Sossamon v. Texas, 131 S. Ct. 1651 (2011), and does not create a private right of action 21
against state officers in their individual capacities. 1 We therefore affirm the judgment 22
of the district court dismissing Washington’s RLUIPA claim. 23
1 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).
2

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BACKGROUND 1
2
This appeal arises from an incident and subsequent disciplinary proceedings at 3
the Woodbourne Correctional Facility, where Washington was an inmate. As relevant 4
here, Defendants-Appellees Chaboty and Granger, corrections officers at Woodbourne, 5
instigated a disciplinary proceeding against Washington, a Muslim, after an 6
interaction on August 6, 2006 in which Washington gave Chaboty a Quran. Following 7
a disciplinary hearing at which Defendant-Appellee Gonyea presided, Washington was 8
found guilty of “harassment” and making “comments of a personal nature to 9
employees,” in violation of 7 N.Y.C.R.R. § 270.2(B)(8)(ii). Gonyea imposed a penalty 10
of 65 days’ special housing confinement and loss of “rec[reation], packages, 11
commissary, phones, and special events.” The New York Appellate Division, Third 12
Department ultimately annulled the disciplinary disposition in an Article 78 13
proceeding on the basis that the disposition was not supported by substantial evidence 14
and that Washington’s conduct was only “a continuation of a cordial relationship 15
between the officer and petitioner.” Washington v. Selsky, 48 A.D.3d 864, 865 (3d Dep’t 16
2008). 17
Washington commenced this pro se suit in the United States District Court for 18
the Southern District of New York on November 5, 2009, alleging that Defendants- 19
Appellees unconstitutionally retaliated against him for exercising his First 20
Amendment rights to free exercise of religion and free speech and denied him due 21
process in violation of § 1983, and that Defendants-Appellees substantially burdened 22
his free exercise rights in violation of RLUIPA. Defendants each moved to dismiss the 23
3

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complaint. As relevant here, the district court dismissed Washington’s RLUIPA claims 1
on the ground that Washington had not adequately pled that the Defendants-Appellees 2
had placed “a substantial burden---or, indeed, any burden---on his religious practice.” 3
See Washington v. Chaboty, No. 09 Civ. 9199, 2011 WL 102714, at *9 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4
10, 2011). Washington subsequently filed this timely appeal. 5
D ISCUSSION 6
7
Section 3 of RLUIPA provides that “[n]o government shall impose a substantial 8
burden on the religious exercise [of an institutionalized person],” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc- 9
1(a), “in a program or activity that receives Federal financial assistance,” id. § 2000cc- 10
1(b)(1), or in a way that affects or would affect “commerce with foreign nations, among 11
the several States, or with Indian tribes,” id. § 2000cc-1(b)(2). RLUIPA creates an 12
express private cause of action allowing individuals to “obtain appropriate relief 13
against a government.” Id. § 2000cc-2(a); see Sossamon v. Texas, 131 S. Ct. at 1656. 14
The term “government” includes, inter alia, “a State, county, municipality, or other 15
governmental entity created under the authority of a State,” “any branch, department, 16
agency, instrumentality, or official” thereof, and “any other person acting under color 17
of State law[.]” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5(4)(A). 18
In Sossamon v. Texas, the Supreme Court held that sovereign immunity 19
forecloses the availability of money damages as a remedy against states and state 20
actors in their official capacities under RLUIPA. 131 S. Ct. at 1663 (“States, in 21
accepting federal funding, do not consent to waive their sovereign immunity to private 22
suits for money damages under RLUIPA because no statute expressly and 23
4

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unequivocally includes such a waiver.”). Washington therefore cannot sustain his 1
RLUIPA claim against Defendants-Appellees in their official capacities. 2
Washington has also sued Defendants-Appellees in their individual capacities. 3
While Sossamon did not decide whether RLUIPA allows individual-capacity suits 4
against state officials, every circuit to have addressed the issue has held that it does 5
not. See Nelson v. Miller, 570 F.3d 868, 886-89 (7th Cir. 2009); Rendelman v. Rouse, 6
569 F.3d 182, 188-89 (4th Cir. 2009); Sossamon v. Lone Star State of Tex., 560 F.3d 7
316, 328-29 (5th Cir. 2009), aff’d on other grounds by 131 S. Ct. 1651 (2011); Smith v. 8
Allen, 502 F.3d 1255, 1271-75 (11th Cir. 2007), abrogated on other grounds by 9
Sossamon, 131 S. Ct. 1651. 10
We adopt the reasoning of our sister circuits in concluding that RLUIPA does 11
not provide a cause of action against state officials in their individual capacities 12
because the legislation was enacted pursuant to Congress’ spending power, see 42 13
U.S.C. § 2000cc-1(b)(1), which allows the imposition of conditions, such as individual 14
liability, only on those parties actually receiving the state funds. See, e.g., Smith, 502 15
F.3d at 1272-75 (“[I]t is clear that the ‘contracting party’ in the RLUIPA context is the 16
state prison institution that receives federal funds; put another way, these institutions 17
are the ‘grant recipients’ that agree to be amenable to suit as a condition to receiving 18
funds—but their individual employees are not ‘recipients’ of federal funding.”);2 cf. 19
2 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)).
5

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Davis ex rel LaShonda D. v. Monroe Cnty. Bd. of Educ., 526 U.S. 629, 640-41 (1999) 1
(holding that for Title IX, “enacted pursuant to Congress’ authority under the Spending 2
Clause,” “[t]he Government’s enforcement power may only be exercised against the 3
funding recipient”). Indeed, “[t]o decide otherwise would create liability on the basis 4
of a law never enacted by a sovereign with the power to affect the individual rights at 5
issue”—i.e., the state receiving the federal funds, Sossamon, 560 F.3d at 329—and this 6
would “raise serious questions regarding whether Congress had exceeded its authority 7
under the Spending Clause,” Nelson, 570 F.3d at 889. Cf. Rendelman, 569 F.3d at 189 8
(explaining that even if Congress could condition acceptance of federal funds on a state 9
subjecting its officials to individual liability, “Congress did not signal with sufficient 10
clarity [an] intent” to do so under RLUIPA). Accordingly, as a matter of statutory 11
interpretation and following the principle of constitutional avoidance, we hold that 12
RLUIPA does not create a private right of action against state officials in their 13
individual capacities. We affirm dismissal of Washington’s RLUIPA claim on this 14
ground. 15
We note that Congress invoked its power to regulate interstate and foreign 16
commerce as an alternative basis for enforcing section 3 of RLUIPA. See 42 U.S.C. § 17
2000cc-1(b) (“This section applies in any case in which . . . (2) the substantial burden 18
affects . . . commerce with foreign nations, among the several states, or with Indian 19
tribes.”); Nelson, 570 F.3d at 886; Rendelman, 569 F.3d at 189. Here, however, 20
Washington has pled no facts indicating that the restriction of his religious rights had 21
any effect on interstate or foreign commerce. The commerce clause basis for RLUIPA 22
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is therefore not properly before the Court, and we decline to decide whether RLUIPA 1
authorizes individual-capacity suits under the imprimatur of the commerce clause. 2
C ONCLUSION 3
For the foregoing reasons, we A FFIRM the judgment of the district court in 4
dismissing Washington’s RLUIPA claim. 5
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