Kim Davis seeks to reverse verdict ordering her to pay $100K damages to gay couple

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Saturday, January 27, 2024

Rowan County Clerk of Courts Kim Davis waves to a crowd of her supporters at a rally in front of the Carter County Detention Center on September 8, 2015, in Grayson, Kentucky. Davis was ordered to jail last week for contempt of court after refusing a court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. | Ty Wright/Getty Images

A former county clerk who received national attention for declining to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because of her protected religious beliefs is appealing a court decision ordering her to pay emotional damages to a gay couple whom she refused to issue a marriage license.

The law firm Liberty Counsel filed a motion in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky on Thursday seeking to reverse a judgment against former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis that ordered her to pay $100,000 to a same-sex couple who claimed her refusal to provide them with a marriage license caused them “emotional distress.”

While a jury awarded plaintiffs David Ermold and David Moore $50,000 each, U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning ordered Davis to pay the couple an additional $246,026.40 in attorneys' fees and $14,058.30 in other expenses. The jury verdict, along with Bunning’s subsequent memorandum and order, put Davis on the hook for more than $360,000.

The motion contends that the emotional damages awarded to Ermold and Moore were unjustified: “Plaintiffs presented the jury with nothing more than their own brief and conclusory testimony. Plaintiffs presented no witnesses, provided no experts, relied on no medical, mental health, or economic professionals, and squandered the opportunity to present any documentary evidence of damages.”

“Instead, what Plaintiffs presented to the jury was only their own brief testimony that their individual feelings were hurt, that they felt humiliated, and—despite admitting they had no idea how to calculate damages—that $50,000 was the arbitrary number they came up with for damages,” the document noted. The motion also cited testimony from Moore, who insisted, “I don’t know what the value is” regarding the emotional damages.

According to Moore, “That’s up to the jury to decide. It’s up to other people to decide what the value is. I don’t know. Maybe it has no value. I don’t know.”

“A plaintiff bearing the burden of proof to demonstrate with competent evidence that he incurred damages, and to prove the amount of those damages, falls woefully short of that burden when his best answer is that his claimed emotional distress ‘maybe it has no value,’” the motion stated. “The case should not have been given to the jury.”

The court document also highlighted how “plaintiffs did not even seek the help of any mental health professional for their alleged emotional distress, let alone bring a medical witness to testify at trial.” It stressed that court precedent has determined that plaintiffs seeking emotional damages must “produce actual evidence of distress and injury, not merely conclusory statements about it.”

“There is no evidence to support the verdict,” said Liberty Counsel founder and Chairman Mat Staver in a statement on Friday. “Today, because of Kim Davis, every clerk in Kentucky now has the freedom to serve as an elected official without compromising their religious convictions and conscience. This case has the potential to extend the same religious freedom protections beyond Kentucky and overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, which was wrongly decided and should be overturned.”

As Staver suggested, Davis received national media attention following her refusal to issue same-sex marriage licenses following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodgesdecision. The 2015 Obergefell ruling determined that the U.S. Constitution contains a right to same-sex marriage and overruled all existing bans on same-sex marriage at the state level, including in Kentucky.

Davis explained at the time that “to issue a marriage license which conflicts with God’s definition of marriage, with my name affixed to the certificate, would violate my conscience.” Davis ended up going to jail for nearly a week for declining to comply with a court order requiring her to issue same-sex marriage licenses.

“Liberty Counsel argues that Davis should not be liable for any damages because she was entitled to a religious accommodation from issuing marriage licenses under her name and authority that conflicted with her religious beliefs,” the law firm asserted. “In April 2016, the [Kentucky] legislature unanimously granted religious and conscience accommodation to all clerks from issuing marriage licenses that conflict with their religious beliefs.”

In addition to taking issue with the validity of Ermold and Moore’s claims of emotional distress, Liberty Counsel accused Bunning of engaging in “unlawful” behavior as he oversaw the case. Specifically, the law firm contended that Bunning “improperly allowed questions concerning whether any potential juror had religious or moral objections to ‘same-sex marriage.’”

“The judge overruled Liberty Counsel’s objection, and that permitted the plaintiffs to exclude all jurors that have religious beliefs and those who had objections to ‘same-sex marriage.’ That question essentially excluded jurors based on religion, which is unlawful under current legal precedent and federal law.”

Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com