A federal judge has ruled that former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis violated the constitutional rights of two same-sex couples when she denied them marriage licenses during the summer of 2015.
In an order published Friday afternoon, United States District Judge David L. Bunning of the Eastern District of Kentucky granted summary judgment in a civil lawsuit that the two couples, David Ermold and David Moore, and James Yates and Will Smith, filed against Davis.
That settles – without a trial – the question of whether Davis violated their constitutional rights, but no decision has been made yet on whether Davis will be on the hook for the likely hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees accrued over the six-and-a-half years of litigation.
Bunning denied Davis’s request for summary judgment on the question of damages, meaning that decision will still go to trial and ultimately be left up to a jury. The plaintiffs are asking for compensatory and punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, costs and attorneys’ fees.
“The plaintiffs could not be more happy,” Michael Gartland, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told WKYT’s Garrett Wymer. “As the court notes in the decision, this case has been pending since 2015. They couldn’t be more happy that they’re finally going to get their day in court and they’re confident justice will be served.”
In a news release, Liberty Counsel, the organization who represented Davis, noted that the case could go back to the Supreme Court over religious freedom concerns.
“Kim Davis is entitled to protection to an accommodation based on her sincere religious belief,” Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said in the release. “This case raises serious First Amendment free exercise of religion claims and has a high potential of reaching the Supreme Court.” (Read Liberty Counsel’s full response here.)
A status conference is scheduled to be held by telephone on April 1. A trial date will likely be set then.
Davis’s actions during the summer of 2015 turned Morehead into an epicenter of the battle over gay rights following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which recognized a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry.
Davis said she acted “under God’s authority” when she, as the order summarizes, “famously refused to comply with Obergefell, which required her to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.”
David Ermold and David Moore were denied marriage licenses three times, and James Yates and Will Smith were denied licenses four times, before the two couples were granted marriage licenses by a deputy clerk while Davis spent five days in jail for contempt of court.
The two couples sued Davis, saying her actions caused “mental anguish, emotional distress, humiliation and reputation damages.”
The case has gone through several setbacks, appeals and delays over the course of the past six-and-a-half years.
Davis was previously found to have sovereign immunity in her professional capacity as county clerk, but did not have protection from civil liability in her personal capacity. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear her appeal on that issue.
Davis had previously asked state lawmakers for an accommodation for her religious beliefs so that she would not have to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but she did not receive one. The state later removed the clerk’s signature from marriage licenses.
Davis lost her bid for re-election in 2018.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Lexington’s CBS News affiliate reports:
A federal judge has ruled that former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis violated the constitutional rights of two same-sex couples when she denied them marriage licenses during the summer of 2015.
In an order published Friday afternoon, United States District Judge David L. Bunning of the Eastern District of Kentucky granted summary judgment in a civil lawsuit that the two couples, David Ermold and David Moore, and James Yates and Will Smith, filed against Davis.
That settles – without a trial – the question of whether Davis violated their constitutional rights, but no decision has been made yet on whether Davis will be on the hook for the likely hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees accrued over the six-and-a-half years of litigation.
Davis’s lawyer Mat Staver responds:
When Davis petitioned the Supreme Court for review in 2020, the High Court denied review in which the only issue raised was sovereign immunity. However, Justices Thomas and Alito appeared to invite future challenges to the 2015 Obergefell marriage case.
Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Alito, wrote that “[t]his petition implicates important questions about the scope of our decision in Obergefell, but it does not cleanly present them.”
In granting summary judgment for the plaintiffs, Judge Bunning ruled that Davis violated “clearly established” law when she ceased issuing all marriage licenses.
The case will now proceed to trial on the issue of damages, if any. Davis argues that a finding of liability would violate the First Amendment Free Exercise of Religion. This case now clearly presents the free exercise defense and thus could return to the Supreme Court.
Kim Davis is entitled to protection to an accommodation based on her sincere religious belief. This case raises serious First Amendment free exercise of religion claims and has a high potential of reaching the Supreme Court.
The number of people that get sexual reassignment surgery is extremely small as a percentage of the population. The number that participate in sports is even smaller. It’s certainly nt a problem that needs to be addressed in Congress or in the state legislatures. Let the governing bodies of the various sports address it.
Nebulous
A) If you’re not good enough to be competitive on the men’s team, you’re sure not going to be making records on the women’s team. There’s not THAT much difference in most sports.
B) Would anybody actually believe that a jock would want to become a woman and draw the ire of conservative homophobes and transphobes merely because he’s not the top man on the team?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
OldCoal
So show me this line of young men eager for surgery or chemical castration so they can compete in women’s sports!
And you can’t. You can’t because it doesn’t exist. A tiny handful of people on hormones or who’ve had surgery want to compete and that’s a national issue because Tucker and his buddies say it is. Why?
Their usual whine is “gender assigned at birth”. Yet the briefest possible glance at Caspar Semenya’s Wikipedia page clearly says HER gender assigned at birth was female, and she’s never taken hormone therapy of any kind. But SHE has issues being allowed to compete.
I’m sure she’s grateful to all you Qubs. /s
And, just to get the rest of the story:
THIS is what Qublicans usually cite about cisgender sport:
ally includes suppressing testosterone levels and boosting estrogen.
The research was carried out by Dr. Timothy Roberts, a pediatrician and associate professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and his colleagues. They found that trans women who underwent hormone therapy for one year continued to outperform non-transgender women, also known as cisgender women, though the gap largely closed after two years. But even then, trans women still ran 12% faster.
HOWEVER they leave off this part (usual Qub partial quotes) :
Roberts, however, suggested the difference in running times needs additional perspective. “It was a 12% advantage after two years in run times. But to be in the top 10% of female runners, you have to be 29% faster than the average woman. And to be an elite runner, you’ve got to be 59% faster than the average cis woman,” he told DW.