A former county clerk in Kentucky, Kim Davis, must pay a total of $260,104 in legal fees and expenses to a same-sex couple whom Davis denied a marriage license because of her religious beliefs.
The new sum is in addition to the $100,000 in damages a jury ruled Davis must pay to the couple who sued, David Ermold and David Moore.
The Davis case gained international notoriety in 2015 when she was jailed for refusing to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple. Davis maintained that she had been faced with a “seemingly impossible choice” between following her conscience and losing her freedom.
A Democrat and a Christian who was elected to the post of Rowan county clerk in 2014, Davis surged into the spotlight when she refused to issue licenses after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. After defying a federal court order and losing a string of appeals, she was jailed for five days in 2015.
Davis returned to her post after she agreed to an “emergency stopgap” concession, allowing her deputy clerk to issue licenses that were edited to remove her name, her title, and her authorization. Davis’s attorneys called on the Kentucky Legislature to rewrite state law to accommodate clerks with religious objections, and they did — Kentucky marriage licenses no longer include the name of the county clerks who issue them.
Attorneys for Davis had argued that the latest fees and costs sought by Ermold and Moore’s legal team were excessive, but U.S. District Judge David L. Bunning disagreed. According to a local news outlet, Bunning called one such claim by Davis’ lawyers exaggerated and said another “belies logic.” Bunning argued that Ermold and Moore “sought to vindicate their fundamental right to marry and obtain marriage licenses, and they did so.”
Both members of the same-sex couple were awarded $50,000 by jury when they initially won their lawsuit.
Michael Gartland and Joseph Buckles — two attorneys practicing in Lexington, Kentucky — represented Ermold and Moore, along with the Public Citizens Law Group in Washington, D.C. The latter group successfully argued against a request for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an earlier appeal by Davis. The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal.
Under the order of District Judge Bunning, Davis must pay fees of $175,408 to Gartland, $51,230 to Buckles, and $33,446.40 to the Public Citizens Law Group. The award for expenses was $14,058. “We got every last penny that we asked for,” Gartland said.
Davis is represented by attorneys with the Florida-based Liberty Counsel, “a nonprofit ministry that operates a pro bono litigation program providing assistance and representation involving religious freedom, the sanctity of life and the family.” Holly Meade, the Vice President of Media at Liberty Counsel, said Davis’s attorneys will appeal Bunning’s ruling.