Court appears skeptical of prison inmate’s religious liberty claim

The Supreme Court on Monday appeared unsympathetic to the plight of a Louisiana man who is suing prison officials who shaved his dreadlocks despite a federal appeals court ruling that established his right to keep them. After nearly two hours of oral argument, a majority of the justices seemed to agree that a federal law intended to protect the religious rights of prisoners does not allow Damon Landor to sue the prison officials in their personal capacities for money damages.

The dispute in Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections began five years ago, when Landor was transferred to the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center with three weeks left in his sentence. Landor, who is a devout Rastafarian, had served five months in two other prisons. As part of his faith, he had grown his hair for nearly 20 years without cutting it – making a promise known as the Nazarite Vow. The previous two prisons had allowed him to keep his hair long or under a “rastacap.”

When Landor arrived at the RLCC he provided the intake guard with a copy of a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit holding that Louisiana’s policy of cutting the hair of Rastafarians violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, a 2000 law intended to protect the religious rights of prisoners. But prison officials threw the copy in the trash, carried Landor to another room, handcuffed him to a chair, and shaved his head bald.

Landor sued the state and the prison officials in federal court. He pointed to a provision of RLUIPA that allows individuals to bring lawsuits against the government and government officials for “appropriate relief.”

The district court threw out the claims against the prison officials in their personal capacity. Chief U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick ruled that RLUIPA does not permit private individuals to bring such claims seeking money damages.

Although the three judges that reviewed Landor’s appeal indicated that they “emphatically condemn[ed] the treatment that Landor endured,” the 5th Circuit upheld the district court’s ruling. It pointed to its 2001 ruling holding that plaintiffs cannot sue government officials in their individual capacity for money damages.

The full court of appeals turned down Landor’s plea to weigh in. In a concurring opinion joined by eight other judges, Judge Edith Brown Clement wrote that “Landor clearly suffered a grave legal wrong. The question is whether a damages remedy is available to him under RLUIPA. This is a question,” Clement emphasized, that “only the Supreme Court can answer.”

Landor then went to the Supreme Court, which agreed in June to review his case. On Monday, his lawyer, Zachary Tripp, told the justices that it is “undisputed” that Landor has alleged an assault that is “brazenly illegal.” Landor’s case, he said, “is the poster child for a RLUIPA violation.” In its 2020 decision in Tanzin v. Tanvir, the Supreme Court held that “appropriate relief” under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a 1993 law that provides similar protection from the federal government for religious liberties, can include money damages in lawsuits brought against government officials in their individual capacities. RLUIPA and RFRA are like “twins separated at birth,” Tripp insisted. The purpose of allowing state officials to be sued in their personal capacity under RLUIPA is to allow lawsuits for money damages against them. Otherwise, Tripp said, those officials can treat the law “like garbage.”

Much of Monday’s argument focused on whether prison officials had the kind of clear notice that they could be held liable to subject them to money damages under RLUIPA. Justice Brett Kavanaugh was among the first to voice these concerns, telling Tripp that a “clear statement” was needed for Landor to bring such claims against the prison officials. RLUIPA’s use of the phrase “appropriate relief,” Kavanaugh posited, is “not as clear as it could be.”

Tripp countered that when officials can be sued in their personal capacity, the ordinary rule is that “where there’s a right, there’s a remedy” unless Congress says otherwise. And unless damages are available to prisoners like Landor, he said, claims against an official in his individual capacity would be “totally meaningless.” If the only remedy that a prisoner can obtain is a court order instructing an official not to do something, Tripp cautioned, an official can “turn off” RLUIPA’s application simply by transferring the inmate to a different facility.

Justice Neil Gorsuch pushed back, telling Tripp that the federal courts of appeals are “unanimously against you” on this issue and “have been for many, many, many years.” Where, Gorsuch queried, did the individual officials agree to be bound by RLUIPA and to be subject to money damages? What notice, he continued, did they have? Moreover, he added later, the federal government in Tanzin had indicated that RLUIPA does not authorize suits for money damages against officials in their personal capacity, which undermined any argument that the availability of those damages was “obvious.”

Justice Samuel Alito also seemed to agree. If, as the court held 14 years ago, RLUIPA’s reference to “appropriate relief” was not sufficiently clear to overcome sovereign immunity and allow an inmate to sue the state for money damages for a RLUIPA violation, how is it clear enough to provide notice for purposes of the Constitution’s spending clause, which allows Congress to make the availability of federal funds hinge on the recipient’s agreement to comply with specific conditions. Why, Alito queried, should the standard be less demanding?

Libby Baird, the assistant to the U.S. solicitor general who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, which filed a brief supporting Landor, told the justices that RLUIPA clearly authorizes individual damages against state officials. RLUIPA, Baird said, “puts states on clear notice” that officials can be sued for damages in their personal capacity.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed. In this case, she said, the prison officials work for the state, which is the recipient of federal funding, and they have to comply with RLUIPA as part of accepting their jobs.

Chief Justice John Roberts resisted this idea, however, responding that it was “based on a legal fiction” and “not what happens as a matter of practice.”

But Justice Elena Kagan also appeared to agree. She suggested that government officials are not surprised when they are sued under Section 1983, which allows suits against state and local government officials for money damages for violations of constitutional rights. They could raise the same objections as the officials in this case, she said.

Benjamin Aguiñaga, the solicitor general of Louisiana, acknowledged that there may be “valid concerns about Congress’ silence” on whether money damages are available from state employees sued in their personal capacity in the wake of decisions by several federal appeals courts going against Landor’s position. But the solution, Aguinaga maintained, is for Congress to pass new legislation to make clear that damages are available in such cases. “The answer is across the street” from the Supreme Court in the U.S. Capitol, Aguiñaga said, “not here” with the justices.

Another focus of the discussion on Monday was a related question: whether prison officials can be held liable when they were not part of the contract between the federal government and the state. Roberts pressed Tripp on this point, noting that the defendants in Landor’s case did not have a direct relationship with the federal government, and therefore there is not the same basis for liability as in typical spending clause cases.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett echoed this concern. She agreed that the facts of Landor’s case were “egregious,” but she asked Tripp to identify similar cases involving laws enacted under the spending clause in which a defendant who had not been a recipient of the funds had been held liable.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was more supportive of Landor’s position. She indicated that there were “dozens” of other federal laws that, she said, the Supreme Court had held could bind third parties like the officials in this case.

Toward the end of the argument, Sotomayor – perhaps reading the tea leaves – seemed to try to seek a softer landing. Even if the court were to rule that the officials in this case can’t be held liable for money damages going forward, on the theory that they did not have clear notice of that possibility, she posited, the court could issue a ruling that could allow other officials to be held liable in similar situations in the future. That said, Sotomayor’s proposed solution may have been too little, too late.

A decision in the case is expected by late June or early July of next year.