An Oregon salon owner is suing Gov. Kate Brown for $100,000 in damages over Brown’s coronavirus restrictions.
Lindsey Graham, owner of Glamour Salon in Salem, argued in her lawsuit that shutting down private businesses “caused greater negative health effects on Oregonians in the form of increased stress, anxiety, and depression,” according to KATU-2, a local ABC News affiliate.
Because of the lockdown, Graham said she lost business opportunities and revenue, and damaged her reputation.
Graham was one of the first business owners in Oregon to reopen her salon in defiance of Brown’s shutdown six weeks after Brown issued a stay-at-home order in March.
She was fined $14,000 for her defiance, and the state sent an agent from Child Protective Services to her home, she alleged.
Graham argued Brown lacks the authority to close private businesses when they are able to operate under health officials’ guidance.
“The sudden, irrational, draconian, and irresponsible orders from the Defendant state of Oregon caused many people to lose their jobs, their careers, and their small businesses,” the suit says.
“For many Oregonians, in an instant, their source of support and ability to provide for their families was eviscerated by a callous and unsympathetic bureaucracy,” it continued.
The state should not be able to define which workers are and are not “essential,” Graham argued.
“If we can all get back to work and feed our families, then I’m going to keep doing it,” Graham said. “It’s my constitutional right to earn a living for my family, and I’m going to do it.”
Graham vowed that she would not let the state’s intimidation tactics get to her.
“I’m risking going to jail to do it. That’s how important it is to my family,” she said back in May. “I’m deciding that it’s more important for me to feed my family and pay the bills that are going to keep our home and our family alive than take the risk to remain being shut down for an undisclosed amount of time.”
