Calvary Chapel Dayton Valley in Dayton, Nevada sued the state last July in an attempt to increase their worship capacity restrictions from 50 to 90 people during the pandemic in their 200 seat sanctuary. The Supreme Court denied the church’s request in a 5-4 ruling that resulted in the conservative Chief Justice Roberts siding the with liberal justices.
The Nevada Board of Examiners unanimously approved and awarded Calvary Chapel of Dayton Valley church $175,000 on Tuesday, June 8, 2021. The money will be paid by the state of Nevada to cover the attorney fees the church accrued fighting worship attendance restrictions place on them by the state because of the pandemic.
In the church’s 2020 suit that was filed against Nevada their lawyers argued that, “The governor allows hundreds to thousands to assemble in pursuit of financial fortunes but only 50 to gather in pursuit of spiritual ones. That is unconstitutional.”
Last December, a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the state’s ruling and said that “instead of a 50-person cap, the Directive could have, for example, imposed a limitation of 50% of fire-code capacity on houses of worship, like the limitation it imposed on retail stores and restaurants, and like the limitation the Nevada Gaming Control Board imposed on casinos.”