Amid all the drama surrounding birthright citizenship and transgender sports yesterday, the Supreme Court announced it will decide another question in a case with potential nationwide consequence: Whether an Orthodox Jew can proceed with his lawsuit against an Ohio city that forced him to obtain a permit to host a prayer group in his home.
The petitioner, Daniel Grand, is an observant Jew who lives with his family in University Heights, Ohio. According to his Orthodox Jewish faith, Grand is required to pray three times a day with a “minyan,” a quorum of ten adult males. Jewish law also forbids him from driving on the Sabbath.
Grand’s original lawsuit filed in the Ohio federal district was dismissed because Grand had failed to obtain a final decision on his permit application, a decision later affirmed by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
According to the court filings, that application seemed doomed from the start. In January 2021, Grand emailed a dozen friends, inviting them to pray at his house on the upcoming Sabbath. Shortly after, one of the neighbors informed the mayor, asking him to “put a stop to this.” Within a day, the city demanded he “cease-and-desist” from using his home as a place of religious assembly without first obtaining a permit.
Grand complied, canceling his planned minyan and applying for a permit.
The public hearing that followed was openly hostile, his lawyers say. Some neighbors sent letters opposing the permit, stating, “I am not Jewish and I do not want our neighborhood labeled as Jewish.”
Rather than continue a process that his lawyers say “seemed rigged against him” at a second hearing required by the city, Grand withdrew his permit application.
But backing down didn’t end the city’s hostilities toward Grand—if anything, they escalated. At a later public hearing, the mayor announced the cease-and-desist order remained in full force. He then urged Grand’s neighbors to surveil his home and “report” any “activities consistent with those in a house of assembly.” Police patrols drove past his house, the lawsuit contends, and the city prosecutor launched what his lawyers call baseless housing code investigations against him.
In 2022, Grand sued the City and several of its officials in federal court for violations of his First Amendment rights and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), among other federal and state laws.
Grand’s lawsuit was rejected in the lower federal courts on jurisdictional grounds—not on the merits of whether the city violated his rights. As his lawyers explain, the courts did not address the constitutionality of the city’s actions, concluding that his case was not “ripe” for review by a court.
In their Supreme Court filing, Grand’s lawyers reject the city’s argument that he has no recourse because he withdrew his application from the permit process, making the case “unripe” for judicial review.
That position reflects a disagreement among the circuit courts on whether a rule developed for property rights cases—requiring a final government decision before suing—should apply to religious freedom claims. Grand’s lawyers urge the Court to draw a sharp distinction: “An individual’s right to free exercise—unlike his right to be compensated in the event of a regulatory taking—does not depend on when zoning authorities issue a final decision.”
The practical stakes, they warn, extend far beyond Grand’s case:
This case is a playbook for government-sponsored religious discrimination. In three circuits, any municipality is free to interfere with a homeowner hosting a small bible study or prayer group. All it has to do is issue a cease-and-desist order directing the homeowner to seek a permit. No court can intervene until the resident has pursued the permit to finality—no matter how immediate, concrete, and heavy the free-exercise burden.
Grand, who filed the original petition with the Supreme Court himself, is now represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom and attorneys from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. “If ‘free exercise’ means anything,” they argue, “the government cannot require you to seek a permit to pray in your home with friends.” A ruling for Grand would not decide whether University Heights violated his rights—but it would let him finally make that case in court.
Featured image via X.
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