Peter Allan, Sr., et al. v. Minnesota Department of Human Services, et al.

The gravamen of the institutionalized persons’ 2021 complaint is that Minnesota Sex Offender Program (MSOP) is choosing not to follow the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act “general rule,” 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1(a), despite taking federal funds in 2020 and 2021 making RLUIPA applicable under § 2000cc-1(b). The Eighth Circuit affirmed dismissal on mootness, after MSOP’s policies were amended, because the “issues presented must be properly pled before the court.”

1. Whether, in the situation where the government amends legally-challenged policies during the pendency of district court litigation, the Eighth Circuit's legal standard requiring that plaintiff’s “issues presented must be properly pled before the court” conflicts with this Court’s legal standard during appeal that the governmental amendments may not render a claim moot where the amended policy is sufficiently similar to the original policy so that it is permissible to say that the challenged conduct continues.

2. Whether the Eighth Circuit decision contradicts this Court’s City of Shelby decision which should be understood as an instruction to lower courts to adjudicate the correctness of a factually-supported legal theory pleaded in a complaint, not to adjudicate the specificity with which a factually-supported legal theory must be pleaded to avoid dismissal.