Liberty Counsel filed a reply brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of a Kentucky church that has been wrongly denied “prevailing party status,” as well as attorney’s fees and costs, from its 2020 legal victory over the state’s unconstitutional COVID-19 lockdowns on churches. In Maryville Baptist Church v. Beshear, the church and its pastor, Dr. Jack Roberts, are petitioning the High Court to review their case. The case presents a critically important Due Process question regarding whether a vested right earned from a legal victory can be retroactively eliminated several years later by recent changes in legal precedent.

In 2020, Maryville Baptist Church and Dr. Roberts obtained the first preliminary injunction in the nation from a Court of Appeals against the unlawful COVID-19 lockdowns on places of worship. In a nearly identical case, Theodore Roberts v. Neace, congregants of the same church also won an injunction. As a result of these injunctions, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear rescinded the unconstitutional mandate. However, he still has not yet been held fully accountable for punishing churchgoers with tyrannical quarantines for attending a parking lot Easter service during the lockdowns.

The Maryville case involves what is referred to as “prevailing party” status. While the district court in the nearly identical Roberts case awarded the congregants prevailing party status and a vested entitlement to attorney’s fees and costs, a different judge denied the church and its pastor the same status and vested right. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, citing longstanding precedent, reversed that decision and sent the case back to the lower court to award the church prevailing party status noting that the facts and the law were identical. However, District Judge David J. Hale again denied the church and its pastor prevailing party status and the accompanying vested right to compensation despite the appeals court instructing the lower court to award it.

The case returned to the appeals court, but during that time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lackey v. Stinnie that earning a preliminary injunction does not make a plaintiff a prevailing party for purposes of a fee award, like a permanent injunction, despite the longstanding practice of courts awarding prevailing status for preliminary injunctions. Despite the longstanding precedent, the Sixth Circuit reluctantly ruled that it must now follow the new Supreme Court’s ruling and thus applied it to the Maryville case retroactively.

Regarding the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the central question Liberty Counsel presents to the Court is: 

Whether a judicial decision that changes legal precedent violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment when it is applied retroactively to deprive a party of a vested right.

While Gov. Beshear argues that Lackey did not make a “new rule” but only “clarified” existing precedent, the actual decision explicitly clarifies the High Court “establish[ed]” a new “straight-forward, bright line rule.” Thus, with its 2020 legal victory, Maryville Baptist Church had gained prevailing party status under the law in existence at the time—880 days prior to Lackey’s new rule. Retroactive application of this new rule violates Due Process by depriving the church of its vested rights to attorney’s fees and costs, and in granting the petition SCOTUS could resolve this important Due Process issue, concluded Liberty Counsel.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reluctantly ruled that the Supreme Court changed longstanding precedent and that it had no option but to alter its prior rulings regarding prevailing party status. The Court of Appeals then retroactively applied the Supreme Court’s ruling and thereby deprived Maryville Baptist Church of a vested right that it had been earned long before the new rule was announced. Retroactive judgments that deprive a party of a vested right is a violation of the Due Process Clause. The implications of retroactively eliminating vested rights go far beyond the specific facts of this case. Everyone is entitled to Due Process of law that cannot be retroactively taken away.”