Attorneys for two pastors who filed a lawsuit asking Chancery Court to prevent Delaware’s governor from imposing future restrictions on religious worship are meeting to see what their next step will be after a judge dismissed the case last week. The Rev. Alan Hines, of Townsend Free Will Baptist Church in Townsend, and the Rev. David Landow, of Emmanuel Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, filed lawsuits late last year seeking an injunction against future emergency orders that place restrictions on houses of worship such as those imposed by Gov. John Carney in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic spread. The pastors’ lawsuits claimed Carney’s emergency orders early in the pandemic denied them their "absolute religious freedoms." Through their lawsuits, they are asking Carney and future Delaware governors to keep their "hands off" the church in any future emergencies, regardless of any pretense they may offer. But Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster dismissed the lawsuit because he said it lacked subject matter jurisdiction — the requirement needed for a court to hear a specific kind of claim. "Courts of equity are rightly reluctant to allow a plaintiff to establish jurisdiction by tacking on a request for a permanent injunction to a […]
