Seventh Circuit Finds No Violation of RLUIPA or Illinois RFRA Based on Sprinkler System Dispute
A recent
decision from the Seventh Circuit considered whether a municipality violated
the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the Religious Land Use and
Institutionalized Person Act (RLUIPA) by evicting residents of a religious recovery
home that lacked a sprinkler system.
In Affordable Recovery Housing v. City of BlueIsland, a faith-based group sought to use a vacant convent as a recovery
home for adults suffering from drug and alcohol addiction. However, after
the recovery home had already moved in dozens of residents, the municipality
notified the recovery home that it was required to install a sprinkler system.
The recovery home refused to install the sprinkler system because of the
significant cost. The municipality then issued an eviction order, and the
residents of the recovery home were forced to move out.
The recovery
home filed suit claiming, among other things, that the municipality had
violated the Illinois RFRA and RLUIPA. The recovery
home argued that the municipality substantially burdened its exercise of
religion by evicting the recovery home residents due to the lack of a sprinkler
system. While the recovery home subsequently obtained a state license to
operate, which did not require the installation of a sprinkler system, the
recovery home pursued its claims based on the alleged infringement of its
exercise of religion.
The Seventh Circuit rejected the
recovery home’s claims. The court found that there was no evidence that
the expulsion of the recovery home's residents was attributable to anything
other than a legitimate concern for fire hazards based on the lack of a
sprinkler system. The court also noted that the recovery home did not
claim that the sprinkler system requirement itself burdened its religious
exercise, only the expulsion of its residents. As such, the court found
that the expulsion of the residents was due to the recovery home's disregard
for the sprinkler requirement, and that the whole issue could have been avoided
had the recovery home researched the state licensing and operating requirements
before it started accepting residents. The court also held that, even if
the municipality's fire-safety code could be considered a zoning law subject to
RLUIPA's protections, the municipality was not seeking to exclude the recovery
home from the municipality's boundaries, and therefore there was no violation of
RLUIPA.
Post Authored by Kurt Asprooth, Ancel Glink
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