(Carolina Journal) – A lawsuit challenging then-Gov. Roy Cooper’s decision to keep North Carolina bars closed during the COVID-19 era could move forward after a June 9 hearing.
The state Supreme Court ruled in 2025 that bar owners could pursue their claims that the government-mandated shutdowns violated their state constitutional rights.
Lawyers representing bar owners and current Gov. Josh Stein, then the attorney general, conferred for roughly 10 minutes Wednesday morning with Special Superior Court Judge Edwin Wilson about how to proceed with the case.
“It seems to me that we’re just sort of tending to this and trying to get everything squared away and that we can do all that on June 9,” Wilson said near the end of the online meeting.
The judge agreed with Stein’s request to dismiss from the case bars and bar owners whom the plaintiffs’ lawyers have been unable to contact since 2024. Wilson signed off earlier on the lawyers’ request to stop representing those clients.
Wilson asked for the parties to submit an order by Tuesday that would finalize the process of dismissing those plaintiffs from the case.
The judge did not take action on the governor’s request to dismiss the North Carolina Bar and Tavern Association from the suit. Stein’s lawyers had filed a motion to drop the group on May 15, but it was not scheduled to be discussed Wednesday.
That motion could be addressed June 9.
“We want to get everything cleaned up and see where we’re going from here,” Wilson noted during the meeting.
“I think it would be our position that this hearing is to figure out who is in this case,” said Elizabeth Curran O’Brien, a state special deputy attorney general representing Stein. “Which plaintiffs are pursuing claims in this case?”
The governor’s lawyers want to ensure “that everybody’s accounted for,” added Michael Bulleri, another special deputy attorney general representing the governor.
The North Carolina Bar and Tavern Association and its members challenged executive orders from Cooper that forced bars to remain closed as other businesses reopened during the pandemic.
The case returned to a trial court after the state Supreme Court ruled in August that bar owners in two separate cases could move forward with lawsuits against the governor. The bar owners said Cooper’s shutdowns in 2020 violated their rights to operate their businesses. The court’s majority emphasized the bar owners’ state constitutional rights to the “fruits of their own labor.”
Justices split 5-2 in both cases, with the Republican majority splitting from Democratic dissenters.
