In Pool v. Dad's Place of Bryan, Ohio, (OH App., Nov. 21, 2025), an Ohio state appellate court remanded to the trial court a church's suit seeking an injunction against subjecting it to Ohio's fire code requirements for residential buildings. The city contends that the church's overnight ministry constitutes use of the building for "residential" as well as "assembly" purposes because the building is used in part for "sleeping purposes." Categorizing the building as "residential" would require the church to install a sprinkler system whose cost is beyond the church's financial ability.
The court said in part:
... [N]ot only has appellant presented undisputed evidence that it cannot afford to open a second location to provide sleeping accommodations, appellant maintains that its religious beliefs require it to welcome the stranger to live among the church, not to operate an offsite homeless shelter. Moreover, appellant cannot simply relocate to somewhere else in the surrounding area with the appropriate use occupancy. Because appellant’s ministry involves gatherings for religious worship, during which individuals are permitted to fall asleep, appellee maintains that appellant’s use occupancy is mixed.... Outside of a fire official exercising discretion in favor of appellant, appellant is left with only one option to comply with the fire code: cease permitting individuals to sleep in its premises, which would violate appellant’s religious beliefs....
The lack of objective criteria in the fire code to categorize appellant’s use as residential combined with appellee’s shifting interpretations throughout the matter’s pendency demonstrates that the fire code provisions at issue are not generally applicable....
... [A]ppellant maintains that it has no intention of creating a homeless shelter, but instead its intention is to provide an overnight ministry in which individuals can pray, engage in fellowship, and listen to scripture, and it would violate its sincerely held religious beliefs to wake individuals who fall asleep during its ministry.... [A]ppellee had to consider the reasons for appellant’s conduct—including its religious reasons—when exercising his discretion to determine that appellant impermissibly changed its use occupancy, and therefore the fire code provisions at issue are not generally applicable.... Accordingly, appellee’s attempted enforcement of the fire code is subject to strict scrutiny under federal constitutional law, and the trial court erred in applying a rational basis review....
Here, appellant opposed the preliminary injunction under both the federal Constitution’s Free Exercise Clause and the Ohio Constitution’s Conscience Clause.... The trial court did not apply a strict scrutiny test as required by Ohio constitutional law, and therefore the trial court neglected to address appellant’s rights under the Ohio Conscience Clause.
