Check out Marianist Province of the United States v. City of Kirkwood, No. 18-3076 (Dec. 13, 2019), for the U.S. Court of Appeals’ handling of RLUIPA and (state law) takings claims stemming from the city not allowing a religious school to light up its baseball field. 

Today’s a busy day, so we won’t delve in detail into the opinion. But nicely, the Eighth Circuit’s website has a summary:

In school’s challenge to city’s zoning regulations in connection with the school’s lighting of its outdoor baseball diamond, the district court did not err in determining that the regulations concerning lighting and sound systems did not substantially burden the school’s religious exercise in violation of RLUIPA; the school’s inability to use its baseball field at night is a mere inconvenience and not a substantial burden because there are alternative times and locations available to it; school’s “as-applied” claim that the school was not treated on equal terms with the city’s public high school rejected because the city’s high school’s football lights and sound system were already in place at the time the zoning regulations were passed in 2012; due to the dearth of case law interpreting Missouri’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the district court abused its discretion in deciding this state law claim on the merits after granting the city summary judgment on the school’s RLUIPA claims; the court should have declined jurisdiction over this pendent state law claim and the matter is remanded with directions to dismiss this claim without prejudice; inverse condemnation claim was properly dismissed as the zoning regulations were a reasonable exercise of the city’s police power and did not constitute a taking or impose unusually restrictive limitations.

For you takings folks, this one was a Missouri law inverse claim (presumably in federal court pre-Knick as a supplemental claim):

In addition, like the regulations here, the ordinance in Tayler was not a total proscription on the use of a property but merely a limit on certain uses. Id. at 646-47; see Max v. Barnard-Bolckow Drainage Dist., 32 S.W.2d 583, 586 (Mo. 1930) (holding that “the proper exercise of the police power” that does “not directly encroach upon private property” is not a taking, though the “consequence may impair the use thereof”). Kirkwood’s regulations similarly do not deprive Vianney of all use of its baseball field but simply limit the light and sound trespass it can impose on neighboring homes.

Vianney asserts that an unreasonable exercise of a city’s police powers can still constitute damage to private property and, therefore, amount to a taking. There was no such unreasonable exercise here. Just as the ordinance in Tayler was considered a reasonable exercise of the police power, Kirkwood’s regulations are similarly limited in their effect and focused on preventing intrusions onto neighboring properties. Furthermore, the reasonableness of Kirkwood’s lighting restrictions is supported by the fact that neighboring municipalities, such as Frontenac and Creve Coeur, have the same or more restrictive lighting limits. See, e.g., Echevarrieta v. City of Rancho Palos Verdes, 103 Cal. Rptr. 2d 165, 171 (Ct. App. 2001) (“[T]raditional land-use regulations such as the imposition of . . . lighting conditions . . . have long been held to be valid exercises of the city’s traditional police power, and do not amount to a taking merely because they might incidentally restrict a use . . . .” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Because Missouri courts have held the reasonable exercise of a city’s police power does not constitute a taking and the regulations do not impose unusually restrictive limitations, we find that Vianney’s inverse condemnation claim fails.

Slip op. at 13-14 (footnote omitted). 

Marianist Province of the United States v. City of Kirkwood, No. 18-3076 (8th Cir. Dec. 13, 2019)