U.S. Supreme Court to Hear Case on Home Prayer Meetings and Zoning Enforcement

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on June 30, 2026, to hear Grand v. City of University Heights in its next term. The case centers on Daniel Grand, an Orthodox Jew in University Heights, Ohio, whose religious practice requires praying with a minyan of ten men and prohibits driving on the Sabbath.

Grand invited a dozen neighbors to pray at his home. On January 21, 2021, the city sent him a cease-and-desist letter stating that without a special use permit he could be cited for code violations and fined. Grand applied for the permit, which under city zoning code would reclassify his home as a house of worship and bar its use as a residence.

He abandoned the permit process and filed a lawsuit under the First Amendment and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. A unanimous Sixth Circuit panel dismissed the case as unripe, applying the finality rule from the 1985 Supreme Court decision Williamson County Planning Commission v. Hamilton Bank to a First Amendment claim.

Fox News reported that a circuit split exists on whether the finality rule applies to First Amendment claims arising from land-use disputes. The Supreme Court previously held in Susan B. Anthony List v.

Driehaus that a credible threat of enforcement constitutes an actionable injury.