Three federal judges granted a stay to Gov. Tom Wolf in the ongoing lawsuit over his COVID-19 mitigation orders, allowing the administration to resume enforcing crowd-size limitations.

A three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit granted the motion just after noon Thursday, temporarily putting a halt to a lower federal court's ruling that three of Wolf's virus mitigation orders were unconstitutional.

As a result of the order, the state wlil be permitted to enforce the gathering-size limitation until the appellate court rules on the appeal.

The order was made over the objection of Tom King, the attorney representing four counties, four local Republican politicians and several local businesses who formed the plaintiffs in the case. King wrote in a response to the governor's motion that it should be stricken from the record due to the inclusion of 26 sources which were not on the record. The order, handed down by Chief Judge D. Brooks Smith and circuit judges Michael Chagares and Patty Shwartz, did not rule on that argument.

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