Portland ordered to pay $56K to Planned Parenthood protesters

Source: Bangor Daily News

PORTLAND, Maine — A failed attempt to limit where anti-abortion activists could gather on Congress Street has become costly for the city.

An Oct. 8 agreement in U.S. District Court requires the city to pay $56,500 in legal fees to the five plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed in February 2014.

The agreement also requires the city to pay $1 per plaintiff “in recognition of Defendants’ violation of Plaintiffs’ First Amendment rights through the implementation and enforcement” of the ordinance passed unanimously by city councilors in November 2013.

The ordinance establishing a 39-foot buffer zone was challenged in U.S. District Court in Maine in February 2014 by Daniel and Marguerite Fitzgerald of Shapleigh, who also named two of their children as plaintiffs.

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Read more: http://bangordailynews.com/2015/10/27/news/portland/portland-ordered-to-pay-56k-to-planned-parenthood-protesters/