Liberty Counsel filed an appeal to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals seeking to overturn a district court’s second denial of attorney’s fees and expenses in Maryville Baptist Church, et al v. Andy Beshear.
While Maryville Baptist Church and its pastor Dr. Jack Roberts prevailed in their 2020 lawsuit against Governor Andy Beshear’s unconstitutional church restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, District Judge David J. Hale ruled twice in this case that the church was not a prevailing party and is not entitled to attorney’s fees and costs. Liberty Counsel previously appealed to the Sixth Circuit for fees where the Appeals Court essentially instructed Judge Hale to award prevailing party status to the church, but he declined to do so.
When Judge Hale first denied prevailing party status and subsequent fees, Liberty Counsel appealed to the Sixth Circuit which ruled 3-0 to send the case back to the district court directing it to reconsider its decision in light of the results from a similar case, which also involved the same church. In Roberts v. Neace, several congregants of Maryville Baptist Church sued Gov. Beshear over the lockdown order and had won their case and were awarded attorney’s fees. The Sixth Circuit noted that plaintiffs obtaining a preliminary injunction entitled them to prevailing party status. In fact, the Sixth Circuit stated that Gov. Beshear ended his church service ban because of the injunctions obtained by Liberty Counsel’s Maryville case.
In remanding the Maryville case back to the district court, the three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit wrote, “Roberts addressed Beshear’s COVID-19 restrictions, preliminary injunctions, mootness, and attendance at Maryville Baptist Church—all features of this case. We vacate and remand for the district court to apply Roberts in the first instance.”
However, Judge Hale denied Maryville Baptist Church prevailing party status a second time indicating that its case was “distinguishable” from the case of its congregants in that the results of the church’s case had little effect in changing the governor’s actions.
Liberty Counsel argues in its appeal that the District Court’s decision to deny prevailing party status to the church “defies explanation” and treats the church and its pastor less favorably than its congregants, who had obtained prevailing party status in their identical case. The appeal states Maryville Baptist Church and its pastor are identically situated plaintiffs as their own congregants since both challenged the same COVID-19 orders and both obtained preliminary injunctions against those orders allowing them all to exercise their First Amendment rights and attend and conduct worship services.
The appeal reads, “To say that the congregants prevailed by obtaining one preliminary injunction while the Church and Pastor who obtained two preliminary injunctions against the Governor’s unconstitutional orders are not defies explanation and constitutes reversible error.”
Liberty Counsel states the church “prevailed in every sense of the word.”
The appeal concluded, “Because the district court relies upon its prior conclusions that have already been rejected and reversed by [this Appeals Court], because the injunctions issued by this Court and the district court provided Plaintiffs with lasting, enduring, and material changes in their relationship with the Governor and allowed them to freely exercise their cherished First Amendment right to religious worship without fear of reprisal from the Governor’s unconstitutional efforts to prohibit such worship, Plaintiffs are prevailing parties entitled to a fully compensatory fee. The district court should be reversed, again.”
On Easter Sunday 2020, Kentucky State Police troopers came to Maryville Baptist Church to fulfill Gov. Beshear’s threat to target anyone who attended a church service against his in-person worship ban. The church was allowing a small number of people to assemble inside its 700-seat sanctuary, spread far apart, and had also set up speakers in its parking lot for “drive-in” worship. The police wrote down license plate numbers and placed quarantine notices on every car, including those containing people who had come for the drive-in service. All worshippers whose cars were noticed in the parking lot on Easter Sunday also received a letter from Gov. Beshear’s administration demanding their agreement to take their temperatures and report every day to the county health authority, not attend church, work, school, stores, and other public places; not travel outside the county; not travel outside of Kentucky without prior approval; and not travel by public, commercial, or emergency conveyance such as a bus, taxi, airplane, train, or boat without prior approval.
In 2020, Liberty Counsel won a series of preliminary injunctions that in combination blocked all aspects of Gov. Beshear’s church lockdown order. The order had prohibited all religious services while allowing many other secular gatherings. With the injunctions in place, Maryville Baptist Church and Dr. Roberts were allowed to resume both parking lot services and in-person services.
Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The Sixth Circuit clearly determined Maryville Baptist Church and its pastor Dr. Jack Roberts are entitled to prevailing party status. Governor Andy Beshear’s executive orders clearly targeted religious services and such a gross violation of the First Amendment entitles Maryville’s attorney’s fees and costs be paid by the state. Now it is time for Gov. Beshear to pay for his unconstitutional actions.”
