PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 18-1450
JESUS CHRIST IS THE ANSWER MINISTRIES, INC.; REV. LUCY WARE,
Plaintiffs − Appellants,
v.
BALTIMORE COUNTY, MARYLAND; BOARD OF APPEALS OF BALTIMORE COUNTY, MARYLAND,
Defendants – Appellees.
------------------------------
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Amicus Supporting Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. Richard D. Bennett, District Judge. (1:17-cv-03010-RDB)
Argued: October 31, 2018 Decided: February 7, 2019 Amended: February 25, 2019
Before NIEMEYER, AGEE, and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded by published opinion. Judge Diaz wrote the opinion, in which Judge Niemeyer and Judge Agee joined. ARGUED: Roman P. Storzer, STORZER & ASSOCIATES, P.C., Washington, D.C., for Appellants. James Joseph Nolan, Jr., Paul M. Mayhew, BALTIMORE COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Towson, Maryland, for Appellees. John Matthew Gore, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Amicus United States of America. ON BRIEF: Sieglinde K. Rath, STORZER & ASSOCIATES, P.C., Washington, D.C.; Lawrence E. Schmidt, SMITH GILDEA & SCHMIDT LLC, Towson, Maryland, for Appellants. Michael E. Field, County Attorney, R. Brady Locher, Assistant County Attorney, BALTIMORE COUNTY OFFICE OF LAW, Towson, Maryland, for Appellees. Tovah R. Calderon, Katherine E. Lamm, Appellate Section, Civil Rights Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Amicus United States of America.
2 DIAZ, Circuit Judge:
Jesus Christ Is the Answer Ministries, Inc. (the “Church”) and Reverend Lucy
Ware appeal the dismissal of their claims against Baltimore County and the Board of
Appeals of Baltimore County. The district court dismissed Plaintiffs’ suit for failure to
state a claim under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act
(“RLUIPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc et seq., the Free Exercise Clause, the Equal Protection
Clause, and Article 36 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. For the reasons that
follow, we vacate and remand for further proceedings.
I.
A.
Jesus Christ is the Answer Ministries, Inc. is a nondenominational Christian
church founded in Baltimore in 1997 by Reverend Lucy Ware. 1 The Church describes
itself as evangelical and multicultural. It has associated churches in Kenya and the
Seychelles, and many of the Church’s congregants were born in Africa. Reverend Ware
was born in Kenya, where she was active in her family church until moving to the United
States.
The Church has struggled to secure an adequate house of worship, and this has
impeded its religious mission. This lawsuit arises from Ware’s unsuccessful efforts to
1 Our recitation of the facts is based on the allegations in Plaintiffs’ complaint, which we accept as true at the motion to dismiss stage. Edwards v. City of Goldsboro, 178 F.3d 231, 244 (4th Cir. 1999).
3 obtain County approval to operate a church on property that she purchased for that
purpose in 2012 (the “Property”).
The Property consists of 1.2 acres of land with a building previously used as a
dwelling. It is zoned under the Baltimore County Zoning Regulations (“BCZR”) as
“Density Residential 3.5.”
In this zone, churches are permitted as of right subject to certain conditions,
including that parking lots and structures are (1) set back 75 feet from tract boundaries,
and (2) separated from adjacent lots by a 50-foot landscaped buffer. BCZR
§§ 1B01.1.A.3, 1B01.1.B.1.e. These conditions, however, don’t apply to new churches
whose site plans have been approved after a public hearing finding that compliance with
the conditions will be maintained “to the extent possible,” and that the plan “can
otherwise be expected to be compatible with the character and general welfare of the
surrounding residential premises.” Id. § 1B01.1.B.1.g.(6).
Before Ware purchased the Property, her realtor advised her that a church was a
permitted use on the Property.
After buying the Property, Ware made improvements to the building and parking
lot and held a church service and cookout. Neighbors complained to the County, and a
County inspector notified Ware that she couldn’t use the Property as a church unless she
complied with applicable zoning requirements.
Ware filed a petition with the County to approve use of the Property as a church.
The petition proposed a buffer and setback of zero feet, seeking complete relief from the
zoning requirements. It also sought variances from parking requirements. The County
4 Director of the Department of Planning did not oppose the petition, “provided a
landscape and signage plan is submitted to the department for review and approval.” J.A.
19 ¶ 105. A hearing was held before an Administrative Law Judge (“ALJ”). Neighbors
who opposed the petition attended and participated.
At the hearing, several neighbors made comments displaying open hostility to
Ware and the Church. These comments included: (1) “dancing and hollering like they
back at their home back in Africa somewhere”; (2) “[s]he can come over here from
Africa . . . branch out from another church and put all of this in our neighborhood”; and
(3) “[t]hey were out here dancing like from Africa. We don’t have that in our block.”
J.A. 19 ¶ 108. Since the hearing, neighbors have subjected the Church and its members
to a sustained barrage of harassment, including racial slurs. The Property has also been
subject to vandalism and theft.
The ALJ recommended denying Ware’s petition. Ware appealed this
recommendation to the Board of Appeals. The Board denied the petition, finding that
“the proposed Church does not even minimally comply” with the applicable zoning
requirements and that the plan would not be compatible with “the character or general
welfare of the surrounding homes which homes are occupied by the [neighbors] who
testified.” J.A. 57. The Board’s decision was affirmed by the Circuit Court for
Baltimore County and the Court of Special Appeals of Maryland. Ware v. People’s
Counsel, 117 A.3d 628 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2015).
While the first petition was pending appeal, Ware filed a second petition. This
new petition included a modified site plan that (1) moved the parking lot to increase the
5 setback to 55–72.7 feet and the buffer to 50 feet, and (2) did not seek any parking
variances. The new petition also differed from its predecessor in that it sought approval
not only under the zoning provision governing new churches, but also under a separate
provision governing existing churches.
The People’s Counsel (a county official) initially sought dismissal of the new
petition, on the ground that it sought essentially the same relief as its predecessor. The
neighbors who opposed the first petition adopted the People’s Counsel’s motion to
dismiss. But the People’s Counsel subsequently withdrew his motion based on the
differences between the two petitions. Nevertheless, the neighbors continued to pursue
dismissal. The Board granted the motion to dismiss, holding that the new petition was
barred by res judicata and collateral estoppel.
B.
Ware and the Church then filed suit in federal district court, alleging that the
Board’s dismissal of the second petition violated RLUIPA’s substantial burden and
nondiscrimination provisions, the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, the
Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, and Article 36 of the Maryland
Declaration of Rights, which protects freedom of religion at the state level. The district
court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. This appeal followed.
II.
We review the district court’s dismissal order de novo, accepting as true the facts
alleged in the complaint and drawing all reasonable inferences in Plaintiffs’ favor, to
6 determine whether the complaint contains facts sufficient to state a claim that is
“plausible on its face.” Kensington Volunteer Fire Dep’t, Inc. v. Montgomery County,
684 F.3d 462, 467 (4th Cir. 2012) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570
(2007)).
We begin with Plaintiffs’ claim that Defendants substantially burdened their
religious exercise, in violation of RLUIPA, by dismissing the second petition. 2 We agree
with the Plaintiffs that the district court erred in dismissing this claim.
RLUIPA prohibits land use regulations that impose a “substantial burden” on
religious practice, unless they are the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling
governmental interest. 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(a)(1). A substantial burden exists where a
regulation “puts substantial pressure on [the plaintiff] to modify its behavior.” Bethel
World Outreach Ministries v. Montgomery Cty. Council, 706 F.3d 548, 556 (4th Cir.
2013).
As relevant here, land use regulations can substantially burden religious exercise
where an organization acquires property expecting to use it for a religious purpose but is
2 Defendants argue, for the first time on appeal, that the Church can’t bring an RLUIPA claim because it doesn’t own the Property (Ware does). This argument doesn’t implicate any jurisdictional issue such as the Church’s constitutional standing. Instead, it concerns whether a regulation affecting the Church fits within RLUIPA’s definition of “land use regulation.” See 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5(5). Because Defendants’ argument doesn’t call our subject matter jurisdiction into question or implicate “exceptional circumstances,” we decline to consider it for the first time on appeal. Muth v. United States, 1 F.3d 246, 250 (4th Cir. 1993).
7 prevented from doing so by the application of a zoning ordinance. In such a case, two
questions are usually relevant to determining whether RLUIPA has been violated.
First, is the impediment to the organization’s religious practice substantial? The
answer will usually be “yes” where use of the property would serve an unmet religious
need, the restriction on religious use is absolute rather than conditional, and the
organization must acquire a different property as a result. See Bethel, 706 F.3d at 557–
58.
Second, who is responsible for the impediment—the government, or the religious
organization? In answering this question, we have considered whether the organization
had a “reasonable expectation” of religious land use, see Bethel, 706 F.3d at 558, and
whether the burden faced by the organization is “self-imposed,” see Andon, LLC v. City
of Newport News, 813 F.3d 510, 515 (4th Cir. 2016).
In this case there is little dispute that the impediment is substantial, since the
Church is barred from using the Property, so the district court sensibly focused on the
second question: Are Plaintiffs responsible for their present inability to use the Property
as a church? But in addressing this question, the court wrongly emphasized Plaintiffs’
purported “failure to exercise due diligence before acquiring and altering the property”
and their “subsequent proposal [in Ware’s first petition] of a site plan that disregarded the
zoning requirements.” Jesus Christ Is the Answer Ministries, Inc. v. Baltimore County,
303 F. Supp. 3d 378, 396 (D. Md. 2018). The first of these supposed failings is irrelevant
to whether the zoning regulations in fact authorize Plaintiffs to use the Property as a
church. And the second is irrelevant to whether Plaintiffs were responsible for the
8 dismissal of Ware’s second petition, which is what now stands in the way of their
religious practice.
Ware sufficiently alleged that she had a reasonable expectation of using the
Property as a church. Her realtor told her that such a use was permitted on the Property.
This advice was of course correct because churches are “permitted as of right,” provided
that their site plans comply “to the extent possible with [applicable] requirements” and
can “otherwise be expected to be compatible with the character and general welfare of the
surrounding residential premises.” BCZR §§ 1B01.1.A.3, 1B01.1.B.1.g.(6). Ware was
justified in believing that she could satisfy these broadly and permissibly phrased
conditions, especially given that the zoning regulations permit churches as of right.
Ware’s efforts to meet the zoning conditions were frustrated, however, when the
Board dismissed her second petition. As the district court recognized, the second petition
was based on a site plan that substantially differed from and attempted to address the
shortcomings of its predecessor. The Board failed to recognize these differences when it
dismissed the petition based on res judicata and collateral estoppel, relying on the faulty
premise that the two petitions sought essentially the same relief.
The district court declined to dismiss Plaintiffs’ suit on grounds of res judicata and
collateral estoppel, but nonetheless determined that the Board correctly dismissed the
second petition on these grounds. The court explained this anomaly by noting that Ware
advanced different bases for distinguishing the two petitions before the Board and the
district court. Specifically, the Board took the “real thrust” of Ware’s argument to be that
the second petition invoked a different subsection of the zoning regulations than the first.
9 J.A. 125. Before the district court, however, Plaintiffs emphasized the differences
between the site plans accompanying the two petitions.
We are not persuaded by the district court’s reasoning. First, Ware did highlight
the differences between the site plans in the administrative proceedings. See J.A. 90,
106–10, 113. It was the Board (not Ware) that decided the “real thrust” of Ware’s
argument was the different zoning provisions invoked by the two petitions. Second, and
more importantly, the two site plans are in fact markedly different. The second plan
addressed the first one’s main deficiencies by moving the parking lot to the center of the
Property. This increased the landscaped buffer from zero to 50 feet, which fully
complied with the buffer requirements. The second plan also increased the parking lot’s
setback from zero to between 55 and 72.7 feet, which complied to a much greater extent
(and arguably “to the extent possible”) with the 75-foot setback requirement. In light of
these substantial changes and improvements, we cannot say that the dismissal of Ware’s
second petition was self-imposed.
Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that the dismissal of the second petition
imposed a substantial burden on their religious practice. We therefore vacate the district
court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ substantial burden claim. 3
3 The district court did not reach RLUIPA’s second prong, which considers whether, despite substantially burdening religious exercise, a government action “is the least restrictive means of furthering [a] compelling governmental interest.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc–1. As we discuss, Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that dismissal of the second petition was motivated by religious animus. Such animus is not a permissible government interest, much less a compelling one. And the dismissal wasn’t narrowly tailored to further the finality interests that are normally served by res judicata and (Continued) 10 B.
Next, we consider the Church’s claim that Defendants discriminated against it
based on religion or religious denomination in violation of RLUIPA. 4 The district court
dismissed this claim, concluding that the Church failed to allege that the Board approved
special exceptions to the zoning regulations for similarly situated churches or that its
decision was influenced by discriminatory intent.
The Church argues that the district court erred by ignoring allegations that the
“Board was knowingly responsive to a hostile community” of bigoted neighbors. J.A. 8
¶ 5. Defendants respond that the neighbors’ discriminatory remarks can’t be attributed to
them, and that the remarks couldn’t have influenced the decision to dismiss the second
petition because they were allegedly made during the hearing on the first petition.
RLUIPA prohibits land use regulations that discriminate “on the basis of religion
or religious denomination.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(b)(2). In applying RLUIPA’s
nondiscrimination provision, courts have looked to equal protection precedent. Chabad
Lubavitch of Litchfield Cty., Inc. v. Litchfield Historic Dist. Comm’n, 768 F.3d 183, 198
collateral estoppel because the second petition substantially differed from the first. Therefore, RLUIPA’s second prong poses no barrier to Plaintiffs’ substantial burden claim at this stage of the case. 4 The complaint alleges religious discrimination against both the Church and Ware. J.A. 32 ¶ 203. However, RLUIPA’s nondiscrimination provision applies only to regulations that discriminate against “any assembly or institution.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc(b)(2). The district court was therefore correct to dismiss Ware’s nondiscrimination claim.
11 (2d Cir. 2014) (citing Bethel, 706 F.3d at 559). Under that precedent, a plaintiff must
demonstrate that the government decision was motivated at least in part by discriminatory
intent, which is evaluated using the “sensitive inquiry” established in Village of Arlington
Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266–68 (1977).
One factor which this inquiry recognizes as potentially probative of the
decisionmaker’s intent is the “specific sequence of events leading up to the challenged
decision.” Id. at 267. Departures from normal procedures can suggest that the decision
was based on unlawful motives, as can “[s]ubstantive departures . . . particularly if the
factors usually considered important by the decisionmaker strongly favor a decision
contrary to the one reached.” Id. (citing Dailey v. City of Lawton, 425 F.2d 1037, 1040
(10th Cir. 1970) (finding racial motivation where a city refused to rezone a plot despite
present and former city planning directors’ testimony that there was no reason not to
rezone)).
Particularly relevant to this case, a government decision influenced by community
members’ religious bias is unlawful, even if the government decisionmakers display no
bias themselves. See City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 448 (1985);
Marks v. City of Chesapeake, 883 F.2d 308, 311–13 (4th Cir. 1989). Such impermissible
influence may be inferred where expressions of community bias are followed by
irregularities in government decision-making. See Smith v. Town of Clarkton, 682 F.2d
1055, 1066 (4th Cir. 1982).
Under RLUIPA, a plaintiff need only establish a prima facie claim of religious
discrimination, after which the defendant bears the burden of persuasion on all elements
12 of the claim. 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-2(b); Chabad Lubavitch, 768 F.3d at 198. And as with
all claims, at the motion to dismiss stage “a plaintiff need not demonstrate that her right
to relief is probable or that alternative explanations are less likely; rather, she must
merely advance her claim ‘across the line from conceivable to plausible.’” Houck v.
Substitute Tr. Servs., Inc., 791 F.3d 473, 484 (4th Cir. 2015) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S.
at 570). So long as a plaintiff alleges a plausible prima facie claim of discrimination, a
court may not dismiss that claim—even if the defendant advances a nondiscriminatory
alternative explanation for its decision, and even if that alternative appears more
probable. Id.; see Woods v. City of Greensboro, 855 F.3d 639, 649 (4th Cir. 2017) (“The
question is not whether there are more likely explanations for the City’s action . . . but
whether the City’s impliedly proffered reason . . . is so obviously an irrefutably sound
and unambiguously nondiscriminatory and non-pretextual explanation that it renders [the
plaintiff’s] claim of pretext implausible.”).
The district court reasoned that the complaint failed to allege disparate treatment
because other churches that ultimately received approval are situated on larger lots and
have sufficient space for parking. However, RLUIPA’s nondiscrimination provision
doesn’t require a comparison to similarly situated entities. Chabad Lubavitch, 768 F.3d
at 199. The Church has alleged that the Board’s dismissal of Ware’s second petition was
motivated by religious discrimination. This is enough to make out a prima facie claim of
religious discrimination, provided that the Church can establish discriminatory intent.
In this case, the alleged sequence of events leading to the challenged decision is
highly probative of Defendants’ motives. It is especially significant that irregularities in
13 Defendants’ decision-making process followed the neighbors’ expressions of animus.
See Town of Clarkton, 682 F.2d at 1066 (describing a town’s unprecedented use of an
opinion poll following expressions of racial opposition to a public housing project as a
“significant” and “suspect” deviation from the procedural norm).
The first irregularity occurred when the Board denied Ware’s first petition even
though the County Director of the Department of Planning didn’t oppose it. The
neighbors who opposed the first petition allegedly made bigoted remarks in the hearing
before the ALJ, and seven neighbors also testified during the Board’s hearing on the first
petition.
In our view, the neighbors’ remarks clearly display ethnic bias, and they can
plausibly be understood as displaying religious bias too. We recognize that RLUIPA by
its terms prohibits discrimination “on the basis of religion or religious denomination.” 42
U.S.C. § 2000cc(b)(2). But we do not attempt to disentangle Plaintiffs’ allegations of
religious and ethnic bias, at least at the motion to dismiss stage where we must view the
alleged facts in Plaintiffs’ favor.
The remarks targeted (1) Ware’s African heritage and that of other congregants,
(2) a Church gathering that (according to the neighbors) involved “dancing” and
“hollering,” and (3) the fact that the Church “branch[ed] out from another church.” J.A.
19 ¶ 108. The first of these topics targets the Church’s multicultural identity. The
second targets activities conducted at Church gatherings, which we may infer involved
religious exercise as defined in RLUIPA. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-5(7). The third targets
14 the Church’s connection to other churches and denominations—a paradigm example of
religious bias.
Plaintiffs also alleged that they “have faced tremendous opposition based on the
nature of their ministry and the ethnic background of Reverend Ware and the
congregation” and “their status as African immigrants.” J.A. 27 ¶ 166–67. Though the
Church is expressly “nondenominational,” J.A. 9 ¶ 15, and has no religious affiliation
except its “associat[ion with] churches in Kenya and the Seychelles,” J.A. 10 ¶ 18,
Plaintiffs’ other allegations are drafted in such a way that we can infer their religious
practice is tied to their ethnicity.
Accordingly, when we draw reasonable inferences in Plaintiffs’ favor and consider
RLUIPA’s “very broad protection for religious liberty,” Holt v. Hobbs, 135 S. Ct. 853,
859 (2015) (internal quotation marks omitted), we are convinced that, as alleged, the
neighbors displayed the behavior Congress sought to eradicate from zoning decisions.
RLUIPA is designed to protect “[c]hurches in general, and new, small, or unfamiliar
churches in particular, [from being] frequently discriminated against” in land use
regulation, including when “zoning board members or neighborhood residents explicitly
offer race or religion as the reason to exclude a proposed church, especially in cases of
black churches and Jewish shuls and synagogues.” 146 Cong. Rec. S7774 (July 27,
2000) (joint statement of Sen. Hatch and Sen. Kennedy).
Following the neighbors’ remarks, the Board denied the petition. Although the
County Director’s statement that she didn’t oppose the petition doesn’t bind the Board, it
is a “factor[] usually considered important” in zoning proceedings, and it “strongly
15 favor[s] a decision contrary to the one reached” by the Board. Arlington Heights, 429
U.S. at 267. And although Plaintiffs didn’t allege how often the Board departs from the
County Director’s recommendations, the fact that the Board disagreed with a County
official who has relevant expertise and a formal role as the Board’s advisor is enough to
raise a plausible suspicion of improper motive.
As Defendants rightly point out, the neighbors’ remarks before the ALJ and the
Board’s disagreement with the County Director occurred well before the Board decided
to dismiss the second petition. But these events are part of the sequence that led to the
challenged decision, and Plaintiffs plausibly alleged that they influenced it. This
connection is strengthened by the neighbors’ ongoing involvement in the dispute, right up
through the dismissal of the second petition.
The second irregularity occurred when the Board granted the neighbors’ motion to
dismiss the second petition, contrary to the position of the People’s Counsel (a County
official). The People’s Counsel initially sought dismissal based on res judicata and
collateral estoppel, but later abandoned this posture. The neighbors continued to seek
dismissal on these grounds, and the Board adopted their position. This second
irregularity adds further plausibility to the inference that Defendants dismissed the
second petition based on improper motives.
We express no opinion on whether the neighbors’ animus ultimately swayed the
Board’s decision to dismiss the second petition. Rather, we conclude only that the
complaint plausibly alleges a prima facie claim of religious discrimination.
16 C.
Plaintiffs also appeal the district court’s dismissal of their First Amendment free
exercise claim and their Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claim, in which they
allege (as in their RLUIPA claims) that Defendants substantially burdened their religious
exercise and discriminated against them on the basis of religion.
We first must determine the correct standard of review. Under the Supreme
Court’s free exercise doctrine, a neutral government decision of general applicability is
subject to rational basis review, even where it has the incidental effect of burdening
religious exercise. Emp’t Div., Dep’t of Human Res. v. Smith, 494 U.S. 872, 879 (1990).
However, a decision whose object “is to infringe upon or restrict practices because of
their religious motivation” is not neutral and is subject to strict scrutiny. Church of the
Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 533, 546 (1993). As we
explained in Section II.B, Plaintiffs have alleged that the object of the Board’s decision
was to restrict their use of the Property in response to community opposition to the
Church’s religious denomination. This allegedly discriminatory motive triggers strict
scrutiny.
Similarly, we apply strict scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause where (as
here) the challenged action interferes with a fundamental right. Bostic v. Schaefer, 760
F.3d 352, 375 (4th Cir. 2014) (citing Zablocki v. Redhail, 434 U.S. 374, 383 (1978)).
And “[u]nquestionably, the free exercise of religion is a fundamental constitutional
right.” Johnson v. Robison, 415 U.S. 361, 375 n.14 (1974); see also Reaching Hearts
Int’l, Inc. v. Prince George’s County, 584 F. Supp. 2d 766, 781 n.9 (D. Md. 2008) (citing
17 Johnson v. Robison in applying strict scrutiny to an equal protection claim based on
religious discrimination).
A government decision fails strict scrutiny if it is not narrowly tailored to advance
a compelling state interest. Lukumi Babalu Aye, 508 U.S. at 546. While Baltimore
County may have a significant interest in finality and economy that would ordinarily be
served by the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel, the dismissal of Ware’s
second petition isn’t narrowly tailored to serve that interest because the second petition
didn’t seek to revisit the Board’s decision about the first petition. We therefore vacate
the dismissal of their free exercise and equal protection claims.
D.
Finally, Plaintiffs brought a claim under Article 36 of the Maryland Declaration of
Rights, which protects freedom of religion at the state level. The district court had
supplemental jurisdiction over this state constitutional claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(a)
because it formed part of the same case or controversy as Plaintiffs’ federal claims.
However, after dismissing the federal claims, the district court exercised its discretion
under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3) to dismiss the state constitutional claim. 5 Given our
decision on Plaintiffs’ federal claims, § 1367(c)(3) no longer provides a basis for
dismissing the state constitutional claim. We therefore vacate the dismissal of the state
5 The district court also noted that Maryland state law is unsettled regarding whether Article 36 provides a private cause of action. However, the court didn’t expressly invoke 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(1), which authorizes it to decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over claims that raise novel or complex issues of state law. We express no opinion about whether dismissal under § 1367(c)(1) is appropriate on remand.
18 constitutional claim and remand so that the district court may decide whether to retain
supplemental jurisdiction over it.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the district court’s judgment and remand for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
VACATED AND REMANDED