Butler County officials filed a petition Wednesday to the U.S. Supreme Court seeking a review of its case against the state.

The lawsuit includes Butler and three other counties, as well as Butler County business owners as plaintiffs in a case against the state's Gov. Tom Wolf and Acting Secretary of Health Alison Beam, regarding their use of executive orders to close businesses and order people to stay in their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lawsuit includes Butler and three other counties, as well as Butler County business owners as plaintiffs in a case.

“In the process, their constitutional rights were violated,” the lawsuit said.

In a ruling Sept. 14, 2020, the U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV agreed with the plaintiffs' claim that Gov. Tom Wolf's business shutdown and stay-at-home orders violated certain constitutional rights.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reviewed the case in July and issued its own ruling in August. The ruling claimed the county's arguments made in the lawsuit were moot.

The ruling, written by Judge Patty Shwartz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, found that, because orders issued by Gov. Tom Wolf and the secretary of health had expired, the legislature terminated Wolf's disaster declaration and no state official has indicated they intend to issue new orders, no legal remedy existed and, as such, the court cannot rule on the merits of the case.

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