A Kentucky church is asking the Supreme Court to decide if the state government must pay its legal expenses from a challenge to COVID-19-era restrictions on church attendance.
The church is arguing that its constitutional rights were violated when it was denied attorney’s fees in its lawsuit, after the same court awarded those fees to litigants in another lawsuit based on the same facts.
The petition in Maryville Baptist Church v. Beshear was docketed on July 24.
The petitioner, Maryville Baptist Church, is located in Louisville, Kentucky. The respondent, Andy Beshear, a Democrat, has been governor of Kentucky since 2019.
Beshear declared a state of emergency in March 2020 based on the pandemic. He issued an executive order banning mass gatherings in public, including those for faith-based activities. The governor lifted all remaining pandemic-related restrictions in June 2021, according to the petition….