Congregation Kol Ami v. Abington Township’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

14 federal appellate · 3 district · 3 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 45 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “first inquiry a court must make in an equal protection challenge to a zoning ordinance is to examine whether the complaining party is similarly situated to other uses that are either permitted as of right, or by special permit, in a certain zone.”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 406 F. Supp. 2d 507 - Lighthouse Institute for Evangelism, Inc. v. City of Long Branch · Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship v. Philadelphia Zoning Board of Adjustment

2. “demonstrate the breadth of a municipality’s power to discriminate in the land use context. Indeed, because the purpose of zoning ordinances is to distinguish among uses in order to draft comprehensive municipal plans, a degree of arbitrariness is inevitable. The question presented in these cases is when does a distinction cross the constitutional line. As long as a municipality has a rational basis for distinguishing between uses, and that distinction is related to the municipality’s legitimate goals, then federal courts will be reluctant to conclude that the ordinance is improper.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 406 F. Supp. 2d 507 - Lighthouse Institute for Evangelism, Inc. v. City of Long Branch

3. “A necessary corollary of the extensive zoning authority bestowed upon local municipalities, including the authority to create exclusively residential districts, is the authority to make distinctions between different uses and to exclude some uses within certain zones. Indeed, zoning is by its very design discriminatory, and that, alone, does not render it invalid.”). 12 . Cf. Korean Buddhist Dae Won Sa Temple of Hawaii v. Sullivan, 87 Hawaii 217 , 953 P.2d 1315, 1345-46 (1998) (concluding that zoning ordinance was”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. 302 F. Supp. 2d 1328 - Konikov v. Orange County, Florida