Appeals Court Rules Kentucky Government Should Pay $270,000 in COVID Church Lockdown Case

A federal appeals court has ruled Kentucky must pay more than $270,000 in attorneys’ fees to plaintiffs who sued the state over Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s COVID-19 lockdown policies.
Plaintiffs Randall Daniel, TJ Roberts and Sally O’Boyle sued the Beshear administration in 2020 over orders they received to quarantine after they attended an Easter church service. The trio argued the administration had violated their constitutional rights.
In a legally complex decision, a federal court granted a preliminary injunction barring the Beshear administration from enforcing its lockdown policies against the churchgoers, and then dismissed the lawsuit against the Beshear administration as a moot issue. The plaintiff churchgoers subsequently sought attorneys’ fees in the case, but the Beshear administration fought the effort—arguing that the plaintiffs were not the prevailing legal party in the lawsuit….}