The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- United States District Court for the District of Maine · Maine
- Level
- Court
- Authority
- 28 U.S.C. sec. 1331; 42 U.S.C. sec. 1983; Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1), (6)
- Issued
- 2020-08-07 Aug. 7, 2020
- Effective
- 2020-08-07
- End
- n/a (read as 2021-09-30)
- In force
- Aug. 7, 2020 to Sept. 30, 2021
- Quarters
- 2020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Business closureCapacity limitWorkplace rulesOperating condition
- Addressees
- all businesses (the Restarting Plan's checklist conditions); the plaintiffs (a brewpub, a gym owner and others)
- Character
- adjudication
- Collection
- Standing duties: Maine DUT-ME
Operative words
Plaintiffs do not allege Defendant's executive orders are unrelated to protecting public health, and only assert a liberty interest in their ability to run their respective businesses.... Harm to business interests, however, is not a 'plain, palpable invasion of rights' under the Fourteenth Amendment.
Penalty
as recited: the checklists were the condition of reopening; the orders' enforcement provisions (Exs. ME-011, ME-025) applied
What it required
The court recited that under the Restarting Plan businesses 'could open as of June 1, 2020, "provided that they comply with detailed checklists"' and that EO 55 ordered that '[a]ny business authorized now to be open shall comply with the pertinent COVID-19 Prevention Checklist or other State of Maine Guidance' (at 3), held that 'a community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members' (quoting Jacobson, at 17), and dismissed the owners' due process, equal protection, takings and commerce clause claims. Character as recorded: adjudication (order_penalty layer).
Retrieval notePins: the checklist recitals at 3 (ECF No. 26, page 3 of 22); the Jacobson passage and the business-interests sentence at 17. The lead plaintiff, Rick Savage, owned the Sunday River Brewing Company (Two Brothers, LLC), whose defiance of the dine-in closure in May 2020 led to State licensing action; the court held he lacked standing to sue on the LLC's behalf (at 8-9, 19). The order is evidence that the checklist conditions were the legal terms of reopening, not an election by the business.