Calvary Chapel San Jose v. Cody

Background

Calvary Chapel San Jose, its lead pastor Mike McClure, Southridge Church, and its lead pastor Micaiah Irmler challenged COVID-19 policies and orders issued by California and Santa Clara County. They alleged that the restrictions treated churches more harshly than comparable secular activities, including through capacity limits, restrictions on singing and chanting, and face-covering requirements. They also alleged that the County imposed more than $2.8 million in fines after the churches violated the orders and took enforcement steps involving Calvary Chapel’s bank.

The Third Amended Complaint asserted nine claims involving the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, the California Constitution, California’s Bane Act, and municipal liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The State and County each moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12, which tests whether the court can hear a claim and whether the complaint adequately states one.

State Defendants

The court granted the State’s motion to dismiss without leave to amend and dismissed the State from the case. It ruled that the requests for injunctions and declarations concerning the State’s COVID-19 restrictions were moot because the challenged policies had been rescinded and statewide injunctions prevented the State from reimposing the challenged restrictions in the alleged discriminatory manner. The court also ruled that the Eleventh Amendment barred damages claims against the State and state officials sued in their official capacities. Because those grounds resolved the claims, the court did not decide the State’s separate argument that the complaint failed to state a claim.

County Defendants

The court granted in part with leave to amend in part and denied in part the County’s motion to dismiss. It granted the motion without leave to amend as to all requests for injunctive and declaratory relief, ruling that those requests were moot because the restrictions had been rescinded and an injunction prevented the County from reimposing certain restrictions on religious worship.

The court denied the County’s motion to dismiss the § 1983 claims based on the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and freedom of assembly. It also denied the motion as to the Fourteenth Amendment equal-protection claim. The court concluded that the allegations plausibly showed that religious activities received less favorable treatment than comparable secular activities and that the claims could not be resolved against the plaintiffs at the pleading stage.

The court denied the motion to dismiss the Eighth Amendment excessive-fines claim. It explained that determining whether the fines were grossly disproportionate required factual comparisons and that the amount of the fine had not yet been set in the related state-court proceedings.

The court granted without leave to amend the motion to dismiss the First Amendment retaliation claim against County Counsel James Williams. It held that letters Williams directed to Calvary Chapel’s bank were conduct connected to the County’s state-court litigation and therefore protected by the Noerr-Pennington doctrine, which generally protects petitioning the government from liability.

For the Monell claim—which seeks to hold a local government liable for constitutional violations caused by its policy or decisions—the court denied the motion as to the County Defendants other than Williams. It granted the motion with leave to amend as to Williams because the complaint did not adequately allege that he had final policymaking authority, while allowing plaintiffs to try to add such allegations.

The court granted with leave to amend the motion concerning the Bane Act claim and the California constitutional claims because the complaint did not allege compliance with California’s Government Claims Act. Amendment was limited to that claims-presentation issue. The opinion’s discussion identifies these as claims 2, 6, and 9; the final order’s corresponding bullet refers to claims 2 and 9, creating a numbering inconsistency.

Disposition and Next Steps

The State’s motion was granted without leave to amend, and the State was dismissed. The County’s motion was granted in part with leave to amend in part and denied in part, with the specific rulings described above. Plaintiffs were ordered to file any permitted amended complaint within 30 days. The order stated that failure to amend on time or to cure the identified deficiencies would result in dismissal of the deficient claims with prejudice. Judge Beth Labson Freeman signed the order on March 18, 2022.