## Facts

- Sandra Barker operated a commercial wedding business (Double S, Inc., d/b/a “A Romantic Maui Wedding”) and arranged wedding ceremonies at her beachfront home in a residential zoning district, including providing access through her property to ceremonies on a public beach.
- Pastor Laki Kaahumanu performed wedding ceremonies for some of Barker’s clients.
- Barker applied for a conditional use permit (CUP) to continue using her residential beachfront property as a commercial wedding venue.
- The Maui Planning Commission recommended granting the CUP subject to conditions.
- After hearings, the Maui County Council voted to deny the CUP, preventing Barker from operating the commercial wedding business on the property.
- Plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and RLUIPA (42 U.S.C. § 2000cc), naming the County and individual councilmembers in their official and individual capacities.

## Issues

1. Whether the County Council’s denial of a CUP for a specific parcel was a legislative act entitling councilmembers to absolute legislative immunity from damages claims under § 1983 and RLUIPA.
2. Whether the CUP decision was instead an administrative or adjudicative act, for which absolute legislative immunity does not apply.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of the motion to dismiss based on absolute legislative immunity.
- The court held the councilmembers were not entitled to absolute legislative immunity because the CUP decision was administrative, not legislative.
- The case returned to the district court for further proceedings, with absolute legislative immunity unavailable for the challenged permit decision (without resolving any qualified immunity defenses).

## Legal Principles

- Absolute legislative immunity turns on a functional inquiry: whether the act is legislative in nature, not whether it is performed by legislators or through legislative procedures.
- Acts with the hallmarks of traditional legislation generally involve prospective policymaking of general applicability affecting a broad segment of the public.
- Applying existing land-use rules to an individual, parcel-specific permit application is typically administrative or adjudicative, not legislative.
- An ad hoc decision affecting only particular applicants and a single parcel does not become legislative merely because a legislative body makes it.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that a county council’s parcel-specific conditional use permit denial was an administrative application of existing zoning rules rather than legislative policymaking, so individual councilmembers could not claim absolute legislative immunity from damages claims under § 1983 and RLUIPA.


Kaahumanu v. County of Maui, 315 F.3d 1215 (9th Cir. 2003)