Landor v. Louisiana Dept of Corrections and Public Safety · ¶134

To be clear, the Court’s decision does not eliminate all damages liability from RLUIPA. See ante, at 4, n. 1. A prisoner who happens to be housed in a local rather than state jail may recover damages from the municipality, which neither enjoys sovereign immunity, see Jinks v. Richland County, 538 U. S. 456, 466 (2003), nor suffers from the indirect-recipient defect the Court identifies, see Barnett v. Short, 129 F. 4th 534, 542 (CA8 2025). Furthermore, RLUIPA channels the commerce power, rather than the spending power, in some of its applications. See 42 U. S. C. §2000cc–1(b)(2). So the rare RLUIPA plaintiff who finds a Commerce Clause hook may recover damages, too. See Tripathy v. McKoy, 103 F. 4th 106, 115, n. 6 (CA2 2024). But Congress did not enact such a patchwork scheme, and the Constitution does not demand it.

slip opinion, revised 6/28/26
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