Texas is on the hook for more than $600,000 in fees associated with its unsuccessful fight to defend the state’s ban on same-sex marriage.
Affirming a lower court ruling on the fees, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals this week shot down Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s challenge to the award amount granted to two same-sex couples who had sued the state.
A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit ruled that the district court “acted well within its broad discretion” in awarding those legal fees.
The fees stem from a lawsuit filed years ago by Cleopatra DeLeon and her wife, Nicole Dimetman, and Mark Phariss and his husband, Victor Holmes, who challenged the constitutionality of the state’s now-defunct same-sex marriage ban.
The couples were successful at the district court level, where a San Antonio federal judge ruled the state’s ban was unconstitutional because it “violates plaintiffs’ equal protection and due process rights.”
Anticipating an appeal, that ruling was stayed and the the ban was left in place. The lawsuit eventually made its way to the 5th Circuit, where a three-judge panel in early 2015 signaled significant doubt about the constitutionality of Texas’ ban.
Note that the Fifth Circuit never actually lifted the stay that was put in place when the original district court ruling was made in favor of DeLeon-Dimetman and Phariss-Holmes. The plaintiffs asked for the stay to be lifted in February of 2015, but no ruling was made before the Obergefell decision was handed down by SCOTUS, and the state of Texas rendered any further action moot by asking the Fifth Circuit to affirm the lower court ruling thereafter. It’s been more than three years since the lower court ruling, and nearly two years since Obergefell. You can’t rush these things, obviously. As the DMN notes, the money will go to the law firm that represented the plaintiffs, and they have pledged to use those funds for further pro bono cases. So at least one good thing happened yesterday while we were all subjected to more bathroom bullshit from the Legislature.
Wonder how many hundreds of millions of dollars Texas has wasted on needless lawsuits. What should anyone care what two adults do in the privacy of their home.