Kim Davis must pay $260,000 legal fees over same-sex marriage license refusal

Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by AudibleNod

Kim Davis, the former county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses in Kentucky to same-sex couples, must pay a total of $260,104 in fees and expenses to attorneys who represented one couple, according to a federal judge’s ruling.

That is in addition to $100,000 in damages a jury said the former Rowan county clerk should pay the couple who sued.

Attorneys for Davis had argued that the fees and costs sought by the attorneys were excessive, but US district judge David L Bunning disagreed and said Davis must pay since the men prevailed in their lawsuit, the Lexington Herald-Leader of Kentucky reported.

Attorneys for Davis were expected to appeal the ruling.

Davis drew international attention when she was briefly jailed in 2015 over her refusal despite the US supreme court’s legalization of same-sex marriage. She based her refusal on her belief that marriage should only be between a man and a woman.

Davis was released only after her staff issued the licenses on her behalf but removed her name from the form. Kentucky’s state legislature later enacted a law removing the names of all county clerks from state marriage licenses.