Free Republic

The former Kentucky clerk who refused to grant a gay couple a marriage license must pay an additional $260,104 to the couple, a federal judge ruled last week. David Ermold and David Moore sued former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis in 2015 after she declined to issue the couple a marriage license because doing so would violate “God’s definition of marriage” and her religious beliefs as a Christian. The additional fees Davis must pay are on top of the $100,000 in damages she was ordered to pay Ermold and Moore in September after losing the lawsuit the couple brought. Davis’s...

Nick Sandmann, who at the time was a Covington Catholic student, appears in a screengrab taken from a video filed as an exhibit in federal court. A federal appellate panel in a 2-1 decision Wednesday denied former Covington Catholic student Nick Sandmann’s bid to revive libel claims against mainstream media outlets over their coverage of his 2019 encounter with Native American activist Nathan Phillips in Washington, D.C. at the March for Life. In July 2022, Senior U.S. District Judge William O. Bertelsman, a Jimmy Carter appointee sitting in the Eastern District of Kentucky, granted summary judgment and threw out Sandmann’s...

<p>LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday threw out multimillion-dollar defamation lawsuits against five media companies brought by a Kentucky student involved in a 2019 widely viewed encounter with a Native American man at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington.</p>

In a 29-page order, U.S. district judge Gregory Van Tatenhove actually got it right on vaccine mandates — but not for reasons cited by either side of this contentious issue. The George W. Bush nominee wrote, "This is not a case about whether vaccines are effective. They are. Nor is this a case about whether the government, at some level and in some circumstances, can require citizens to obtain vaccines. It can." Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove further made his case, writing, "The question presented here is narrow. Can the president use congressionally delegated authority to manage the federal procurement of...

A judge on Tuesday blocked President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors, finding that Biden likely lacks the authority to force them to get vaccinated. “This is not a case about whether vaccines are effective. They are. Nor is this a case about whether the government, at some level, and in some circumstances, can require citizens to obtain vaccines. It can,” U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove, a George W. Bush nominee, wrote in the 29-page order. “The question presented here is narrow. Can the president use congressionally delegated authority to manage the federal procurement of goods and...

A federal judge on Friday ruled that a Cincinnati, Ohio-area healthcare provider could require its employees get vaccinated against COVID-19 or risk losing their job, in what appears to be the first ruling of its kind for a private employer in the United States. The employees of St. Elizabeth Healthcare failed to establish that their individual liberties were being violated by the vaccine requirement of the hospital operator, which has the right to set employment terms, said U.S. District Judge David Bunning in Covington, Kentucky. St. Elizabeth employees must get vaccinated by Oct. 1. The widespread availability of vaccines in...

A federal judge in Kentucky on Thursday temporarily blocked a statewide school mask mandate put in place amid increased transmission of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. The ruling comes a little over a week after Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) signed an executive order requiring all teachers, staff, students and visitors in Kentucky schools to wear face coverings while indoors. In an eight-page ruling, U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman, a Carter appointee, said Beshear’s order appeared to lack validity after the state legislature earlier this year overrode Beshear's veto to pass a measure limiting his public health...

(CN) — Defamation and harassment claims brought by students at Kentucky’s Covington Catholic High School against CNN, the Washington Post and NBC were dismissed by a federal judge Wednesday after he found that none of the twelve plaintiffs had been defamed or unlawfully threatened. The suit stems from a confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial in January of 2019 during the annual March for Life, and followed on the heels of CNN’s settlement with fellow student Nicholas Sandmann. Sandmann’s tense encounter with Native American activist Nathan Phillips at the march went viral, sparking widespread ire on social media from commenters who...

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WKYT) - A U.S. District Court judge ruled late Wednesday that Kentucky’s religious schools can hold in-person classes. Danville Christian Academy filed a lawsuit Friday and Attorney General Daniel Cameron and other schools joined it. They claim the mandate shouldn’t apply to them because of their religion. Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove granted Danville Christian Academy’s request for an injunction so the school could continue with in-person learning. In his opinion, the federal judge said that closing religious schools “prevents the corporate nature of religious education which is insinuated with worship, prayer, and mentoring.”

A federal judge in Kentuck has overturned Governor Andy Beshear’s ban on mass gatherings as it relates to in-person church services. The ruling clears the way for churchgoers to attend services on Sunday.