Opinion
No. 09-4492-pr.
July 1, 2011.
Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York (Thomas J. McAvoy, Judge).
UPON DUE CONSIDERATION IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court entered on September 28, 2009, is AFFIRMED.
Darryl Hall, Brooklyn, NY, pro se.
Andrew B. Ayers, Assistant Solicitor General (Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, Denise A. Hartman, Assistant Solicitor General, on the brief) for Andrew M. Cuomo, Attorney General of the State of New York, Office of the Attorney General, Albany, NY, for Appellees.
PRESENT: ROBERT D. SACK, B.D. PARKER and REENA RAGGI, Circuit Judges.
SUMMARY ORDER
Darryl Hall, proceeding pro se, appeals from an award of summary judgment in favor of defendants on his claim for money damages for violation of § 3 of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 ("RLUIPA"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000CC-1. We review an award of summary judgment de novo, "construing the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and drawing all reasonable inferences in its favor." Costello v. City of Burlington, 632 F.3d 41, 45 (2d Cir. 2011). We will uphold such an award only if the record reveals no genuine issues of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(a). In applying these standards, we assume the parties' familiarity with the facts and procedural history of the case.
We previously affirmed the award of summary judgment to defendants on Hall's First Amendment free speech and free exercise claims. See Hall v. Ekpe, 408 Fed.Appx. 385 (2d Cir. 2010) (summary order).
Insofar as Hall's RLUIPA claim is asserted against defendants in their official capacities, dismissal of such claim is compelled by the Supreme Court's recent holding that "States, in accepting federal funding, do not consent to waive their sovereign immunity to private suits for money damages under RLUIPA." Sossamon v. Texas, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 1651, 1663, 179 L.Ed.2d 700 (2011).
Although Sossamon did not address whether RLUIPA authorizes individual-capacity claims for damages, we do not reach that issue in this case because defendants are entitled to qualified immunity. See generally Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 2080, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011) ("Courts should think carefully before expending scarce judicial resources to resolve difficult and novel questions of constitutional or statutory interpretation that will have no effect on the outcome of the case." (internal quotation marks omitted)). In affirming the grant of summary judgment to defendants on Hall's First Amendment free exercise claim, we observed that
defendants would, in any event, be entitled to summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity because, although it was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation that prison officials may not substantially burden the right of free exercise "without some justification," Salahuddin v. Goord, 467 F.3d [263,] 276 [(2d Cir. 2006)], it was not clearly established that security and financial concerns could not provide that justification for prisoners who had not demonstrated observance of their professed religion in a manner identified by the prison chaplain for that religion, see Redd v. Wright, 597 F.3d [532,] 536 [(2d Cir. 2010)].
Hall v. Ekpe, Fed.Appx. 385, 388 n. 3 (2d Cir. 2010) (summary order). The same result obtains with respect to the RLUIPA claim against defendants in their individual capacities. Hall can point to no relevant case law declaring (or even foreshadowing) that defendants' policy, or any substantially similar policy, was not the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling governmental interest and, thus, invalid under RLUIPA. See Redd v. Wright, 597 F.3d at 536; see also Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 131 S.Ct. at 2083 (observing that "existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate").
We have considered Hall's remaining arguments and conclude that they are without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the September 28, 2009 judgment is AFFIRMED.