The case involves Damon Landor, a prisoner in Louisiana who alleges that officials at a federally funded state prison handcuffed him to a chair and shaved his head after he handed them a copy of controlling precedent holding that the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act protected his right to keep his hair long. Landor's counsel, Zachary D. Tripp, told the Court the facts were the poster child for a RLUIPA violation and that the law provides a damages remedy. The Louisiana Department of Corrections and Public Safety, represented by Solicitor General J. Benjamin Aguiñaga, urged the Court to affirm the judgment below on either of two grounds: that RLUIPA does not clearly and unambiguously create an individual-capacity damages action, or that Congress exceeded its constitutional authority in attempting to do so.
The United States appeared as amicus curiae supporting Landor. Assistant to the Solicitor General Libby A. Baird argued that RLUIPA clearly authorizes individual-capacity damages suits against state officials, that RLUIPA is RFRA's sister statute and should be read the same way, and that the Court's decisions in Salinas and Sabri upheld more expansive uses of congressional power to impose criminal liability.
Much of the argument turned on whether prison guards and wardens — who do not themselves receive federal funds — can be bound by RLUIPA's conditions through their employment relationship with the state. Justice Gorsuch pressed Tripp repeatedly on whether the individual defendants had notice of and consented to the conditions, noting that every circuit court in the country had ruled against the petitioner's position and had done so for many years. Tripp acknowledged the uniform circuit precedent but argued that those courts had skipped a critical analytical step: asking first whether the statute creates an individual-capacity action, which he said it expressly does by defining "government" to include "an official or any other person acting under color of state law."
Justice Kavanaugh focused on whether the term "appropriate relief" unambiguously encompasses damages, pointing to Chief Judge Sutton's opinion in Ali as emblematic of the post-Tanzin circuit view that the statute still falls short of the required clear statement. Tripp argued that once an individual-capacity action is established, the Franklin presumption makes damages available against a non-sovereign unless Congress says otherwise, and that an individual-capacity action without damages is meaningless because injunctive relief against officials in their individual capacity does not exist.
Justice Barrett pressed Tripp to concede the full implications of his theory, asking whether a coach at a federal-funding-recipient university could be held personally liable for damages under a hypothetical Spending Clause statute. Tripp ultimately answered yes, if the condition is valid and the other elements of his proposed test — valid condition, officer within scope, and conduct threatening the integrity of the program — are satisfied. Aguiñaga argued that Sabri's key holding was that statutes like 18 U.S.C. 666 are not Spending Clause legislation at all but rather exercises of the Necessary and Proper Clause to protect federal dollars from corruption, and that RLUIPA, as true Spending Clause legislation, cannot reach non-recipients without their consent. Justice Sotomayor countered that ruling for the respondents would put at risk dozens of federal statutes, a characterization Baird endorsed, listing the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act, EMTALA, and Title X as statutes where employees or agents can be held liable, and adding that accepting respondents' constitutional arguments could call into question Section 666, the bribery statutes, and Sabri.
Aguiñaga also noted that Louisiana has its own RLUIPA analog that expressly provides money damages and was available to Landor, though he acknowledged the warden is no longer associated with the Department of Corrections. The case, No. 23-1197, was submitted at the close of argument.