Andrew Cooperrider, et al. v. Andrew Beshear, et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky grants Governor Andrew Beshear’s renewed motion to dismiss claims arising from the revocation of a bar’s liquor license during the COVID-19 pandemic. The court holds that, accepting the plaintiffs’ allegations as true, Beshear acted in a quasi-prosecutorial capacity and is entitled to absolute immunity. The court also concludes that the law-of-the-case doctrine does not bar Beshear from raising the previously unresolved absolute-immunity defense.

Holdings

1. Governor Beshear was entitled to quasi-prosecutorial absolute immunity because, accepting the complaint's allegations as true, he acted in a quasi-prosecutorial capacity by directing the initiation and continuation of an agency enforcement proceeding, refusing settlement, and directing revocation of Brewed's liquor license.
2. The law-of-the-case doctrine did not bar Beshear from asserting absolute immunity because neither the district court nor the Sixth Circuit had squarely decided that issue; the earlier decisions concerned qualified immunity.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Governor Beshear was entitled to quasi-prosecutorial absolute immunity from the plaintiffs' individual-capacity claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 based on allegations that he directed the initiation, continuation, settlement posture, and outcome of an administrative liquor-license enforcement proceeding.
2. Whether the law-of-the-case doctrine barred Beshear from raising absolute immunity after the district court and Sixth Circuit previously addressed qualified immunity without deciding absolute immunity.

Disposition

other