South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom
The Supreme Court refused to block California's COVID-19 order limiting attendance at religious services to 25% of building capacity, letting the restrictions stay in place while the underlying lawsuit continued.
The decision, explained in a solo concurrence by Chief Justice Roberts, signaled that federal courts should generally defer to state officials making fast-moving public health decisions during a pandemic — though four justices sharply disagreed, calling the rules unconstitutional discrimination against religion.
How it got here: The church applied directly to the Supreme Court for emergency injunctive relief; Justice Kagan referred the application to the full Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
South Bay United Pentecostal Church in California challenged Governor Gavin Newsom's COVID-19 executive order, which capped attendance at religious worship services at 25% of building capacity or 100 people, whichever was lower. The church pointed out that many secular businesses — including restaurants, retail stores, factories, and cannabis dispensaries — faced no similar percentage occupancy cap. The church said it was willing to follow all the same social-distancing and hygiene rules applied to those businesses, but objected to the stricter limit imposed specifically on religious services.
The question before the Court
Could a California church get a federal court order blocking the state's COVID-19 rule capping attendance at religious worship services, when many secular businesses faced no similar percentage limit?
The Court's answer
No — the Court refused to issue the emergency order the church requested, allowing California's attendance limits to remain in force. Chief Justice Roberts, writing separately to explain his reasoning, said emergency injunctive relief demands a very high showing: the constitutional violation must be "indisputably clear" and the circumstances truly critical. He concluded that bar was not met, because California's restrictions appeared consistent with the First Amendment — comparable secular events involving large groups in close quarters for extended periods, like concerts, movie showings, and spectator sports, faced similar or stricter limits.
Roberts also stressed that state officials have especially wide room to maneuver when navigating medical and scientific uncertainty, and that unelected federal judges lack the expertise and accountability to override those public health calls — especially in the middle of a fast-moving emergency where conditions were changing daily.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Houses of worship in California had to keep complying with the 25% occupancy cap during the ongoing COVID-19 emergency. More broadly, the Roberts concurrence gave state public health officials a strong signal that the Supreme Court would not second-guess their pandemic rules in real time — a posture the Court would revisit as later cases arose.
What changes now
California's COVID-19 attendance limits on houses of worship stayed in effect. The underlying lawsuit continued in the lower courts. Because this was only a denial of emergency injunctive relief — not a ruling on the merits — the First Amendment question remained open. The Court would return to COVID-related religious-liberty restrictions in later cases as the pandemic continued and state rules evolved.
What this does not decide
The ruling does not decide whether California's COVID-19 attendance caps were constitutionally valid. It only refused emergency relief at one moment while local officials were still actively managing a fast-moving crisis. It does not set a general rule about pandemic restrictions on religious gatherings, and the underlying lawsuit remained live.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts wrote separately to explain why the high standard for emergency injunctive relief was not met. He reasoned that California's rules appeared neutral toward religion because similar secular gatherings — concerts, movie showings, spectator sports — faced comparable restrictions. He also emphasized that state officials deserve especially broad latitude during a public health emergency and that unelected federal judges should not second-guess those decisions in real time.
Dissent — Justice Kavanaugh
Justice Kavanaugh would have granted the injunction, arguing that California's 25% occupancy cap plainly discriminated against religious worship by imposing stricter limits on churches than on a wide range of comparable secular businesses — restaurants, retail stores, factories, and others — that faced no percentage cap. He applied strict scrutiny, found California offered no compelling justification for the difference in treatment, and said the church was entitled to be treated the same as those secular businesses.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- Emergency injunctive relief clears a higher bar than a stay: the legal right being violated must be 'indisputably clear' and the situation truly critical and exigent. Chief Justice Roberts applied that threshold as the starting point and found the church had not met it.
- Roberts analyzed the Free Exercise Clause — which protects the right to practice religion free from government targeting — by asking whether California treated religious worship less favorably than comparable secular gatherings. He concluded it did not: the same or stricter capacity limits applied to concerts, movie showings, lectures, and spectator sports, all of which similarly involve large groups in close proximity for long periods.
- Roberts distinguished the exemptions California granted to grocery stores, banks, and laundromats — noting that those activities are genuinely different because people do not congregate in large groups or linger in close proximity there. Without a meaningful secular comparator that got better treatment, the restrictions appeared neutral toward religion, not discriminatory.
- Drawing on Jacobson v. Massachusetts (a 1905 ruling recognizing broad state authority over public health), Roberts said state officials — who answer to voters — deserve especially wide latitude when making decisions in areas clouded by medical and scientific uncertainty. Federal courts, which lack that expertise and accountability, should not substitute their judgment for that of public health officials managing a fast-moving crisis.
- Justice Kavanaugh, in dissent, applied strict scrutiny — the most demanding constitutional test, which requires the government to show a very strong justification for treating groups differently and a rule tightly designed to meet that justification — because he read California's rules as clearly singling out religious services for stricter treatment than a long list of comparable secular businesses facing no percentage cap at all.
- Kavanaugh argued California had not supplied a compelling reason for the differential treatment: the church was prepared to follow every social-distancing rule that applied to secular businesses, making the extra 25% occupancy cap on worship services unjustified discrimination against religion under the First Amendment.