LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Legal Newsline) – A Kentucky church that successfully fought stringent early COVID-19 gathering orders from Gov. Andy Beshear in court objects to a finding that it should be awarded six figures in attorneys fees.
Maryville Baptist Church on June 30 filed its response to a Louisville federal magistrate judge’s recommendation that it pay its own attorneys fees instead of the Commonwealth of Kentucky doing it, despite winning a preliminary injunction against Beshear’s orders.
Magistrate Judge Regina Edwards ruled on June 16 that Maryville’s victory is “not one of those rare cases where a preliminary injunction winner” is entitled to fees from the other side, rejecting a motion for Kentucky to pay more than $390,000.
Edwards found Maryville was not a “prevailing party” because it did not receive “enduring and irrevocable relief” from the injunction.
That’s not true, Maryville Baptist argues as it tries to convince the judge presiding over the case not to adopt Edwards’ recommendations.
“The Magistrate’s findings and conclusions obfuscate the value of the court-ordered relief obtained by Plaintiffs by suggesting that the injunctive relief Plaintiffs obtained from the Sixth Circuit and this Court was limited and was relief Governor Beshear would have given Plaintiffs anyway,” the objection says.
“Not so. The timeline of the court proceedings and Governor Beshear’s changes to his Orders shows that it was the Sixth Circuit and this Court that forced Governor Beshear to remove restrictions on Plaintiffs’ assembling for worship at their church.”
State Attorney General Daniel Cameron tried to warn Beshear with an amicus brief submitted in April 2020 that said his order forbidding mass gatherings for religious services was “quintessential discrimination.”
All non-life-sustaining businesses were ordered closed. Cameron wrote, “Just as troubling is Governor Beshear’s refusal to define religious activity as ‘life-sustaining’ for those Kentuckians with sincerely held beliefs about communal worship.”
After his initial order in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic began, Beshear on April 10, 2020, held a press conference to announce Kentucky State Police would collect license plate numbers of all people who attended church on Easter Sunday. He threatened those worshippers with misdemeanors.
Troopers followed his instructions that Sunday at Maryville. Pastor Dr. Jack Roberts received a notice of a misdemeanor violation and became a co-plaintiff in Maryville’s lawsuit.
The trial court refused their motion for temporary restraining order/preliminary injunction, but they appealed to the Sixth Circuit. That court granted an emergency injunction pending appeal, and the trial judge then granted a preliminary injunction after the Sixth Circuit had written the plaintiffs were likely to succeed.
The appeal was dismissed as moot, since the trial judge had entered the preliminary injunction. Meanwhile, the Kentucky General Assembly passed four measures to restrict the governor’s emergency powers.
Five lawyers and a legal assistant billed for 738 hours for a total of $312,445.50. Lawyers billed between $375 and $525 per hour and seek a multiplier of 1.25.
Those lawyers wrote the relief they obtained was, in fact, enduring.
“(T)his case did not involve a general constitutional challenge to the Governor’s COVID-19 Orders, by an occasional churchgoer who might want to attend a worship service in the future,” the objection says.
“Rather, this case is about a pastor and a church, who lead worship every Sunday prior to filing, and who obtained in court the concrete right to assemble for certain, scheduled worship, this Sunday, and every subsequent Sunday.”