It is unclear if the former clerk is responsible for the legal fees of two couples who sued and other monetary damages accrued over the almost seven-year-long legal back-and forth.
The jury will determine if Davis is liable for these fees and damages. They are likely to amount to hundreds of thousands of Dollars.
“After S-E–V-E–N years, Judge Bunning finally decided that Kim Davis inadvertently violated our constitutional rights,” David Ermold wrote. Ermold was one of those initially denied a Davis marriage license.
He said, “Now, the question was will they hold her financial responsible for the insensitive legal mess that SHE caused.” It feels like seven years’ legal purgatory.
The Liberty Counsel , which represents Davis says it will continue to argue that she isn’t liable for damages, because she was entitled a religious accommodation (which Governor Mat Bevin granted)
“Davis claims that a finding of negligence would violate the First Amendment Free Exercise of Religion,” said the counsel. The counsel is a religious liberty organization that litigates cases that involve evangelical Christian values.
Davis claims that he has the authority to refuse marriage licenses
In 2015, Davis, as a county clerk, challenged the Obergefell-v. Hodges Supreme Court ruling. This landmark decision legalized same-sex marriage across the country.
She claimed that distributing marriage licenses for such couples was against her Apostolic Church beliefs, and that she couldn’t give them one “under God’s authority.”
She refused to marry the same man quickly and received support from social conservatives as well as anger from advocates for same-sex marriage.
Ermold and his husband David Moore were denied three times marriage licenses, while James Yates (and Will Smith) were denied four times licenses. Their licenses were finally approved by a deputy clerk, while Davis was held in contempt of court for five days.
The ordeal caused them mental anguish, emotional harm and other problems.
