Temple of 1001 Buddhas v. City of Fremont

Background

Miaolan Lee lived on property owned by the Temple of 1001 Buddhas in Fremont, California. The property remained subject to a 1978 Land Conservation Contract under California’s Williamson Act. The contract limited the property to agricultural and compatible uses, including living quarters, home occupations, public and quasi-public buildings, and accessory uses.

The property was zoned as open space and contained structures Lee used for religious purposes. Over several years, City employees conducted inspections and searches, obtained inspection warrants, issued notices concerning alleged code violations, restricted access to certain buildings, and required corrective work. In March 2021, the City issued an Amended Notice and Order to Abate Nuisance that required the demolition of three buildings and cited alleged violations of City zoning and permitting rules and several California codes and laws.

Lee and the Temple filed a complaint asserting twelve federal and California causes of action. The claims included four claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for religious discrimination, national-origin discrimination, retaliation, and unreasonable searches; five claims under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA); and California claims for invasion of privacy, arbitrary discrimination, and violation of the California Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause. The City moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal when a complaint does not adequately state a claim for which relief can be granted.

California Claims

The court granted dismissal of Lee’s three California causes of action with leave to amend. California generally requires a person seeking money damages from a public entity to first present a written claim containing enough information for the entity to investigate and potentially settle the claim.

For the invasion-of-privacy claim, the court found that Lee’s more recent claim forms did not provide a factual basis for the alleged unauthorized entries, surveillance, warrant-related misconduct, or other privacy violations. The forms also failed to identify the City employees involved. The court said Lee could potentially amend this claim to seek only injunctive or declaratory relief, but it did not decide whether such a revised claim would be viable.

For the arbitrary-discrimination claim under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, the court found that Lee’s statements that the City engaged in race, religion, gender, and national-origin discrimination were bare conclusions without supporting facts or the names of involved employees. The court granted dismissal with leave to amend.

For the California Free Exercise Clause claim, the court held that California’s claim-presentation requirements applied because Lee sought monetary compensation that was not merely incidental to her requests for declaratory and injunctive relief. The claim forms lacked sufficient factual detail and did not identify the employees involved. The court also briefly addressed the claim’s merits to help avoid repeated amendments. It held that Lee’s complaint incorrectly alleged that Fremont Municipal Code section 18.55.110 completely excluded religious uses from the open-space district. The zoning table allowed religious institutions as a type of quasi-public use, with a conditional-use permit, in four of the district’s seven land-use designations. The court stated that it could not consider a different theory raised only in Lee’s opposition because that theory was not pleaded in the complaint.

Section 1983 Claims

The court granted dismissal of all four § 1983 claims with leave to amend. Lee sued only the City, not the individual City employees. Under the municipal-liability rule, a city is not liable merely because it employs someone who allegedly violated a person’s constitutional rights. A plaintiff must plausibly allege that a City policy, custom, or decision caused the alleged constitutional injury and was the moving force behind it.

The religious-discrimination claim relied mainly on individual employees’ enforcement decisions and did not identify a City policy or custom causing the alleged violation. The court also rejected the complaint’s premise that section 18.55.110 barred every religious use in the open-space district.

The national-origin-discrimination claim failed for the same municipal-liability reason, and the court additionally noted that the complaint did not allege facts showing that City employees discriminated against Lee based on race or national origin.

The retaliation claim alleged that the City retaliated through inspection warrants, searches, cameras, notices, and citations, but did not link those actions to a City policy or custom.

The property-search claim likewise lacked allegations connecting the challenged actions to a municipal policy or custom. The court also identified additional apparent problems, including missing details about alleged overhead surveillance, the lack of authority supporting a right to notice before the City sought a warrant, uncertainty about whether employees exceeded the warrants’ scope, and the City’s argument that some events were too old to support the claim. Lee did not respond to those additional arguments, but the court still granted leave to amend.

RLUIPA Claims

The court granted dismissal of all five RLUIPA claims with leave to amend. RLUIPA protects religious exercise from substantial burdens imposed through certain land-use systems, requires religious assemblies or institutions to receive treatment equal to similarly situated secular uses, and prohibits total exclusion or unreasonable limitation of religious assemblies and institutions.

The substantial-burden claim failed because it assumed that section 18.55.110 excluded all religious uses from open-space areas. The court explained that an amended claim could instead challenge how the City implemented the zoning provision, including allegations that City employees limited Lee’s ability to pray to particular areas of the property. The court did not decide whether such a revised theory would succeed.

The unequal-terms claim also rested on the incorrect premise that the zoning provision barred all religious uses. The court found no allegation that the City treated religious institutions differently from similarly situated secular institutions. Lee’s allegation that a neighbor’s property violations were treated differently did not establish that the neighbor was similarly situated under the relevant zoning criteria.

The unlawful-exclusion claim failed because the zoning provision did not totally exclude religious uses. The court allowed amendment to allege facts showing that the City either totally excluded religious assemblies from the jurisdiction or unreasonably limited them.

The abatement-proceedings claim challenged the entire March 2021 Amended Notice and Order. The court held that Lee could challenge portions implementing zoning laws, even though the order also cited other California laws. But the complaint did not identify which parts applied zoning laws or explain why those parts violated RLUIPA. The court granted dismissal with leave to amend.

The Land Conservation Contract claim sought declarations about whether the structures and religious use complied with the contract and alleged that enforcing the contract against religious use violated RLUIPA. The court held that applying the contract on the same terms to religious and nonreligious uses would not establish an RLUIPA violation, and that a purely contractual question did not belong in an RLUIPA claim. The court granted dismissal with leave to amend.

Disposition

The court granted the City’s motion to dismiss with leave to amend the complaint in its entirety. Lee could file an amended complaint within 45 days of the order. The court also denied Lee’s requests for judicial notice because it viewed them as improper attempts to amend the complaint during briefing. The opinion was classified as a procedural order because the case was dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6), even though the court briefly discussed the merits of the California Free Exercise Clause claim.