Tandon v. Newsom
The Supreme Court blocked California from enforcing its three-household cap on at-home religious gatherings while a legal challenge plays out, ruling the state was treating religious worship more harshly than comparable commercial activities in violation of the First Amendment.
The decision — the fifth time the Court had rejected California's pandemic rules on religious gatherings — made clear that states must affirmatively prove religious exercise poses greater health risks than secular activities they permit to operate more freely.
How it got here: A federal district court denied an emergency injunction; the Ninth Circuit also denied one; the challengers then filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court, which Justice Kagan referred to the full Court.
The Case in Depth
What happened
During the COVID-19 pandemic, California capped gatherings in private homes at three households for any purpose. A group of California residents who held prayer meetings at home argued this rule violated their constitutional right to religious freedom because California simultaneously allowed hair salons, retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and indoor dining venues to bring together more than three households at a time — treating commercial gatherings more favorably than at-home religious worship.
The question before the Court
Could California enforce stricter limits on how many households could gather for at-home religious worship than it allowed for hair salons, restaurants, and other commercial businesses?
The Court's answer
Yes — the Court granted the emergency injunction, ruling that California's cap on at-home religious gatherings likely violates the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause.
Because California allowed various commercial businesses to serve gatherings larger than three households while imposing that exact cap on at-home religious worship, the regulation triggered the strictest form of constitutional review. Under that demanding standard, California had to show that at-home religious gatherings posed greater COVID-19 transmission risks than the secular activities it permitted to operate more freely — even assuming the same safety precautions were applied. The Court found California never made that showing. With the challengers likely to win their case, facing irreparable loss of religious freedom rights even for short periods, and California unable to demonstrate that less restrictive measures would endanger public health, an emergency injunction was warranted.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
California residents who host prayer meetings or other religious gatherings at home could temporarily invite more than three households while litigation continues. More broadly, states enforcing COVID rules — or any regulation — that limits religious gatherings must show that the religious activity is genuinely more dangerous than comparable secular activities they allow, not simply assert it.
What changes now
California must allow at-home religious gatherings of more than three households, subject to reasonable precautions, while the Ninth Circuit appeal continues. The emergency order terminates automatically if the challengers do not seek Supreme Court review or if that review is denied. If the Court agrees to hear the case, the injunction stays in place until the Court issues its final ruling. The underlying constitutional question about California's pandemic rules for religious gatherings has not been finally resolved.
What this does not decide
This temporary order does not finally decide whether California's COVID home-gathering rules permanently violate the First Amendment — that merits question remains for the Ninth Circuit and, potentially, the Supreme Court. The order also does not specify what safety precautions California may require at larger at-home religious gatherings.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Roberts
The Chief Justice noted in a single line that he would deny the application, without writing a separate opinion explaining his reasoning.
Dissent — Justice Kagan
“California need not, as the per curiam insists, treat at-home religious gatherings the same as hardware stores and hair salons—and thus unlike at-home secular gatherings, the obvious comparator here.”Justice Kagan's core objection: the majority chose the wrong comparison group, ignoring that California equally restricted all at-home gatherings.
Justice Kagan argued that the obvious comparator for at-home religious gatherings is at-home secular gatherings — not hair salons or restaurants — and California's blanket cap on all home gatherings, religious and secular alike, satisfies the First Amendment. She also contended the majority ignored the factual record, which showed that home gatherings pose greater COVID transmission risks than commercial settings for at least three evidence-backed reasons (longer interactions, poorer ventilation, harder-to-enforce precautions), and accused the majority of repeatedly disregarding both law and facts in COVID religious-exercise cases.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court applied the rule that a government regulation triggers strict scrutiny — the most demanding test in constitutional law, requiring a compelling government interest and a law tailored as narrowly as possible to serve it — whenever it treats any comparable secular activity more favorably than religious exercise, even if some other secular activities are treated equally poorly.
- Comparability under the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause is determined by the risk an activity poses to the government interest at stake (here, COVID-19 spread), not by the reason people gather. The relevant question is whether California allowed secular activities carrying similar transmission risks to proceed with fewer restrictions than at-home religious worship.
- California permitted hair salons, retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters, and indoor dining venues to bring together more than three households at a time, while holding at-home religious gatherings to a firm three-household cap. Because those commercial settings were treated more favorably than at-home religious exercise, strict scrutiny applied regardless of whether other secular activities faced equal limits.
- Under strict scrutiny, the burden shifts to the government: California had to prove its restrictions were narrowly tailored — meaning less restrictive measures could not adequately reduce COVID spread. The Court found California never showed that at-home religious gatherings posed greater risks than commercial venues it allowed to operate more freely, or that precautions adequate for those venues would fail for religious gatherings.
- The Court rejected the Ninth Circuit's reasoning that the public-versus-private-building distinction justified different treatment, and its suggestion that safety precautions might not 'translate readily' to the home. A state cannot assume the worst about people gathering for worship while assuming the best about people gathering for commercial purposes.
- Although California modified its restrictions after the application was filed, the Court found the case was not moot: the old restrictions remained in effect until April 15th, and officials who had repeatedly changed the rules retained authority to reimpose tighter limits at any time, keeping applicants under a continuing threat.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo (592 U. S. ___)
The Court restated and extended this case's four key Free Exercise principles as controlling law.
Reaffirms Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. Hialeah (508 U. S. 520)
Cited to confirm that strict scrutiny under the Free Exercise Clause is not watered down and truly means what it says.