Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 2020

Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo

592 U.S. 14 | 141 S. Ct. 63 | 208 L. Ed. 2d 206

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Takeaway

In short, this case held that pandemic restrictions likely violate the Free Exercise Clause when they impose uniquely severe limits on worship while allowing comparable secular activity to proceed more freely, and that temporary reclassification does not defeat relief when the challenged restrictions can readily return.

Background

New York’s COVID-19 zoning program allowed the Governor to designate localized red, orange, and yellow zones based on infection rates. In red zones, houses of worship were limited to the lesser of 10 people or 25% of capacity; in orange zones, they were limited to the lesser of 25 people or 33% of capacity. By contrast, essential businesses in red zones had no fixed numerical cap, and even many nonessential businesses in orange zones could set their own attendance limits. The affected churches and synagogues were large enough to hold hundreds of people and had followed health protocols without a documented outbreak.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel challenged the red- and orange-zone caps under the Free Exercise Clause and sought emergency injunctive relief. The District Court denied the Diocese’s request for a preliminary injunction, finding that the rules were epidemiologically based and that religious services could be distinguished from essential businesses. The Second Circuit denied emergency relief but set expedited proceedings. After the applications reached the Supreme Court, New York reclassified the applicants’ areas as yellow zones, permitting services at 50% capacity, while retaining authority to redesignate them as red or orange zones.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether New York’s 10- and 25-person caps on attendance at religious services likely violated the Free Exercise Clause.

Holding

Yes. The applicants made a strong showing that the caps were neither neutral nor generally applicable and were unlikely to survive strict scrutiny.

Reasoning

The Court concluded that the rules singled out houses of worship for especially harsh treatment. In red zones, churches and synagogues were capped at 10 people while a broad class of essential businesses could admit unlimited numbers. In orange zones, the disparity was greater: houses of worship faced a 25-person cap while even many nonessential businesses had no fixed capacity limit.

Because the State treated religious exercise less favorably than secular activity, the restrictions were subject to strict scrutiny. Preventing the spread of COVID-19 was unquestionably a compelling governmental interest, but the State still had to show that its chosen restrictions were narrowly tailored to serve that interest.

New York had not made that showing on the emergency record. The applicants had complied with public-health guidance, adopted additional precautions, and reported no outbreaks connected to their services. The Court also identified obvious less restrictive alternatives, including limits tied to a church’s or synagogue’s size. It was difficult to justify admitting only 10 people to a 1,000-seat church or 25 people to a 400-seat synagogue while permitting much larger numbers in secular businesses.

Issue #2

Whether the applicants satisfied the requirements for emergency injunctive relief pending appellate review.

Holding

Yes. The applicants showed a likelihood of success, irreparable injury without relief, and no sufficient showing that an injunction would harm the public interest.

Reasoning

The likely Free Exercise violation established a likelihood of success on the merits. The Court stressed that constitutional scrutiny still applies during a pandemic, even though courts should respect the expertise of public-health officials.

The injury was irreparable because the loss of First Amendment freedoms, even briefly, is irreparable injury. Remote viewing could not fully replace in-person worship: Catholics attending Mass remotely could not receive communion, and important Orthodox Jewish practices required physical attendance.

The State had not shown that enjoining the fixed numerical caps would endanger public health. It did not claim that the applicants’ services had caused COVID-19 transmission, and it did not establish that less restrictive measures would be inadequate. Thus, the public-interest factor did not justify preserving the challenged caps.

Issue #3

Whether the Governor’s reclassification of the applicants’ neighborhoods from red or orange zones to yellow zones eliminated the need for relief.

Holding

No. The controversy was not moot, and an injunction remained appropriate because the applicants faced a continuing and imminent threat of reclassification.

Reasoning

The Governor’s voluntary change in zone designations did not end the dispute. The executive order remained in place, and the Governor regularly changed designations without advance notice. The applicants therefore remained subject to the possibility that the challenged caps would again be imposed.

Waiting for a future redesignation would risk further irreparable injury. Services occurred daily, and a late-week redesignation could prevent congregants from attending Mass or Sabbath services before the religious organizations could obtain judicial relief. The Court held that the applicants should not bear that risk after already making the required showing for an injunction.

Concurrences

Justice Gorsuch

Reasoning

Justice Gorsuch agreed that New York’s rules likely violated the Free Exercise Clause because they treated worship worse than secular activities the State labeled essential. In his view, the State’s classifications revealed an impermissible judgment that liquor stores, bicycle shops, and similar secular enterprises were more essential than religious worship, even when houses of worship were prepared to follow extensive precautions.

He rejected the suggestion that Jacobson v. Massachusetts or early-pandemic judicial deference authorized reduced constitutional scrutiny. Jacobson involved a different asserted right, a modest vaccine-or-fine requirement, and what he characterized as rational-basis review. It did not authorize courts to relax the Free Exercise Clause’s ordinary strict-scrutiny framework during a public-health emergency.

Justice Gorsuch also thought the temporary reclassification reinforced, rather than weakened, the case for relief. The Governor retained the power to reimpose the restrictions, and requiring religious organizations to start emergency litigation anew each time a zone changed would permit recurring losses of constitutional rights. The Court should establish the governing rule now rather than leave the parties to repeated emergency applications.

Justice Kavanaugh

Reasoning

Justice Kavanaugh agreed that the injunction was warranted but emphasized that it was temporary relief, not a final merits judgment. In his view, New York’s fixed caps were exceptionally severe because they applied regardless of the size of the worship space, even where distancing and masks would permit substantially more people to attend safely.

He explained that once New York created favored secular categories, it had to justify excluding houses of worship from those categories. It was not enough for the State to point to other secular activities, such as theaters, that faced equal or greater restrictions. The relevant constitutional problem was the more favorable treatment given to secular businesses that were permitted to operate without the same numerical caps.

Justice Kavanaugh accepted that state officials deserve substantial deference in addressing the pandemic, but he distinguished deference from judicial abdication where religious discrimination is plausibly shown. He also disagreed with Chief Justice Roberts’s procedural approach: because the executive order remained in force and the applicants faced imminent redesignation, there was no reason to postpone an injunction that would either have no effect or prevent the recurrence of unconstitutional restrictions.

Dissents

Chief Justice Roberts

Reasoning

Chief Justice Roberts would have denied emergency relief because none of the applicant houses of worship was then subject to the 10- or 25-person caps. The yellow-zone rules allowed services at 50% capacity, which was at least as favorable as the relief the applicants sought. In his view, an injunction directing the Governor not to enforce restrictions he was not currently enforcing did not meet the demanding standard for extraordinary relief.

He acknowledged that the fixed numerical caps seemed unduly restrictive and might violate the Free Exercise Clause. But he believed the Court need not decide that serious question immediately, particularly while public-health officials were responding to a deadly pandemic. If New York reimposed the caps, the applicants could return to the Court and it could act quickly.

Chief Justice Roberts also responded to Justice Gorsuch’s discussion of South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom and Jacobson. He stated that his South Bay concurrence cited Jacobson only for the uncontroversial proposition that state political officials principally bear responsibility for protecting public health and safety, not to place constitutional rights on hold during a pandemic.

Justice Breyer

Reasoning

Justice Breyer, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, would have denied the injunction because the applicants were no longer in red or orange zones. They could seek renewed emergency relief if the State later redesignated their areas, and the Court could act rapidly if necessary. He saw no legal or practical need to intervene before the Second Circuit’s expedited consideration of the case.

He also concluded that the applicants had not clearly established entitlement to the extraordinary remedy of an injunction. COVID-19 was spreading rapidly, and medical evidence indicated that indoor gatherings involving sustained proximity, talking, and singing present substantial transmission risks. Those considerations made the constitutional question and the balance of equities less clear than the Court suggested.

Justice Breyer stressed that elected officials possess broader practical capacity than courts to use scientific expertise, respond quickly to changing conditions, and make difficult public-health judgments. Although New York should seek ways to accommodate religious exercise, he would allow the ordinary appellate process to address the merits rather than override the State’s emergency measures immediately.

Justice Sotomayor

Reasoning

Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Kagan, argued that New York’s program complied with the approach reflected in South Bay and Calvary Chapel. New York imposed equal or stricter restrictions on comparable secular gatherings—such as lectures, concerts, films, spectator sports, and theatrical performances—while treating houses of worship more favorably by allowing them to remain open subject to capacity limits.

In her view, essential businesses such as grocery stores, banks, laundromats, liquor stores, and bike-repair shops were not proper comparators because they generally did not involve large groups speaking or singing together indoors for extended periods. The District Court had credited the State’s epidemiological distinctions, and she warned that judges should not substitute their own assessments for expert public-health judgments about how a highly contagious virus spreads.

Justice Sotomayor also rejected the claim that the policy was nonneutral simply because it expressly referred to houses of worship or because of the Governor’s statements about COVID-19 rates in Orthodox Jewish communities. The policy mentioned religious institutions in order to give them more favorable treatment than comparable secular gatherings, she reasoned, and the cited statements did not establish the sort of religious targeting that required strict scrutiny.