Anti-Abortion Group Awarded Attorneys’ Fees in Buffer Zone Suit

Anti-abortion groups are entitled to attorneys’ fees in a suit that challenged a local Kentucky law limiting protests at abortion clinics, but the amount must be reduced based on the narrowness of their success, a federal court said.

The plaintiffs, including Sisters for Life Inc., were the prevailing parties for purposes of an award under federal civil rights law because the court permanently barred the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government from enforcing a “buffer zone” around an EMW Women’s Surgical Center, where abortions were performed, the US District Court for the Western District of Kentucky said Tuesday. But by then EMW ...