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Oregon Sup. Ct.: "The Circuit Court Erred in Concluding That the Governor's [Coronavirus] Executive Orders Violated a Statutory Time Limit"

|The Volokh Conspiracy |


An interesting and important decision, though one based on state law and thus not much applicable outside Oregon. The case was brought by a church to challenge the orders' restrictions on religious services, but the court didn't reach that question:

[P]laintiffs did not assert a stand-alone free-exercise claim that the Governor's orders were invalid because they violate constitutionally protected religious freedoms. Moreover, plaintiffs did not base their preliminary injunction request on such a theory, as evidenced by the breadth of their request. And such a theory would not justify the preliminary injunction that the circuit court issued, which applies to all the Governor's coronavirus orders. It is not limited to those that, for example, limit the size of gatherings or close schools. Accordingly, we do not address that theory….