In Presley v. Captain, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5235 (MD AL, Jan. 19, 2007), an Alabama federal district court permitted an inmate to proceed with free exercise and RLUIPA claims stemming from the alleged denial of access to religious property central to the prisoner's Native American religion at the time of his transfer to a different penal institution.
In Guzzi v. Thompson, (D MA, Jan. 25, 2007), a Massachusetts federal district court denied a preliminary injunction to a Catholic prisoner who claimed that his rights under RLUIPA were infringed when he was denied kosher meals. He argued that traditional concepts of Catholicism require the same dietary laws followed by Jewish sects. However the court held that where the plaintiff makes an argument for protection of a religious practice not generally associated with the system of beliefs of Christian-Catholics to which he belongs, it may properly decide that plaintiff has not shown the likelihood of success on the merits required to support a temporary injunction.
In Rouse v. Caruso, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4941 (ED MI, Kan. 24, 2007), a Michigan United States Magistrate Judge permitted an inmate to amend his civil rights complaint to allege that a Department of Corrections employee discriminated against him based on his religious beliefs. The court held that while verbal harassment disparaging a prisoner's religious beliefs "does not embody the type of coercive pressure which amounts to a substantial burden on religious exercise" under RLUIPA, a claim that a prisoner was terminated from his prison employment because of his religion does state a valid RLUIPA claim.
