Death is a part of life. Let’s assume that your Mom or your Dad dies. You love them so very much, and you still want to be close to them. To keep that close proximity to them, you decide you want to bury your parent in your backyard, your private property. But the county denies your burial request given the state’s general laws about burial restrictions. Have your religious freedom rights been violated in this situation?
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Answer: According to a recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California the answer is “No”. Baxter v. San Bernardino Cnty., 2026 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 104384 *; 2026 LX 291764 (C.D. Cal. May 5, 2026). Here is an A.I. generated summary of the decision:
The magistrate judge recommended dismissing Jerry Baxter’s complaint, which challenged San Bernardino County’s refusal to allow him to bury his father’s remains on private property. Baxter asserted several federal and state claims, including under RLUIPA and the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, arguing that the denial interfered with his religious practice. The court concluded that none of the federal claims was adequately pleaded and further recommended dismissal without leave to amend, while declining supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims.
On the religious-freedom issues, the court first rejected the RLUIPA claim. It explained that RLUIPA applies only when the government imposes a substantial burden through a land-use regulation involving an individualized assessment of how property may be used. Here, however, the court found that the county’s denial was based on California’s generally applicable health and safety statutes governing burial of human remains, especially the rule limiting burial to cemeteries absent specified exceptions. Because those statutes were treated as nondiscretionary public-health rules rather than land-use regulations inviting case-by-case judgment, the court held that RLUIPA did not apply.
The court then turned to Baxter’s Free Exercise claim and framed the dispute under the rule that neutral laws of general applicability ordinarily do not violate the First Amendment even if they incidentally burden religious conduct. In the court’s view, the California burial restriction was facially neutral because it barred all private-property burials of human remains regardless of religious motivation, and it was generally applicable because it imposed the same rule on everyone. For that reason, the law needed only to satisfy rational-basis review rather than strict scrutiny. The court found that standard easily met, reasoning that the restriction was rationally related to the state’s legitimate interest in public health and safety.
The judge also rejected Baxter’s related equal-protection and due-process theories, concluding that he had not alleged intentional religious discrimination and had not shown a constitutionally protected property interest in burial on his preferred terms. Overall, the decision treats the religious-liberty question as limited by the distinction between targeted burdens on religion and neutral public-health regulation. In the court’s analysis, Baxter’s religious objection did not transform a uniform cemetery rule into religious discrimination, and that conclusion drove the dismissal of the religion-based federal claims.
Disclaimer: The Religion Law Quizzes are provided as a service to you. They are intended only for educational purposes. Nothing in the Quizzes is intended to be legal advice and they should not be relied upon as conclusive on any issue discussed therein.