In Minhal Academy of Turnersville, Inc. v. Township of Washington,(D NJ, Aug. 25, 2021), a New Jersey federal district court denied plaintiffs' motion for judgment on the pleadings in a RLUIPA challenge to the Township's refusal to allow a mosque to continue to operate in a commercial condominium complex. The court said in part:
Plaintiffs allege that Defendants’ denial of a use variance has made their religious exercise inconvenient and costly, but nothing more. The Court will therefore deny Plaintiffs’ motion on this ground because they have not conclusively shown that Defendants’ denial caused them substantial hardship....
Plaintiffs are not entitled to judgment on the pleadings on their equal terms claim because the Complaint does not identify a “nonreligious assembly or institution” that received comparatively better treatment under the zoning laws at issue here....
[I]n order to establish their RLUIPA nondiscrimination claim, Plaintiffs must show that the Township treated Plaintiffs worse than non-Muslim comparator institutions because Plaintiffs are Muslim....
Ultimately the Court finds that Plaintiffs’ fact intensive RLUIPA nondiscrimination claim should be resolved with a complete factual record.
