LOUISVILLE, Ky. (Legal Newsline) - The Kentucky church that successfully fought Gov. Andy Beshear's 2020 COVID orders won't recover the attorneys fees it incurred in doing so.
Federal judge David Hale on Sept. 30 rejected Maryville Baptist Church's motion for attorneys fees and expenses that sought $390,556.88 in fees and about $1,500 in expenses. Hale's decision affirmed a report and recommendations issued in June by a magistrate judge.
"(B)y Plaintiffs' own acknowledgement, the relief they received was neither 'court ordered' nor 'enduring,'" Hale wrote.
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.