The meaning of red, yellow and green phases and stay-at-home orders were among issues discussed Wednesday in federal court for a lawsuit that pits the county against the state's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

On May 7, Butler, Fayette, Greene and Washington counties, four Republican lawmakers and several small businesses filed a federal lawsuit against Gov. Tom Wolf in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

The suit challenges Wolf's disaster emergency declaration — specifically the business shutdown and stay-at-home orders over the coronavirus pandemic — and claims he violated certain constitutional rights.

Wednesday's hearing before U.S. District Judge William Stickman IV was a continuation of one held Friday to record firsthand accounts from business owners and elected officials in Butler and the surrounding counties on what they experienced during Wolf's COVID-19 measures. The suit asks Stickman to make a declaratory judgment on the matter.

Business owners testified the state's closure of parts of the economy were arbitrary, while members of Wolf's administration answered questions related to the state government's measures, which started in March.

Tom King, of the firm Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham in Butler, is the lead attorney for the plaintiffs. Karen Romano, chief deputy attorney general, represented the state's interests.

Under questioning from the two sides, Sam Robinson, the administration's deputy chief of staff, explained the process he and others within the administration developed for the red, yellow and green phases used to control the spread of the virus. Noting he did not have a background in medicine or public health, Robinson said he was part of the state's “reopening team.”

On March 6, Robinson said, the state recorded its first virus cases.

“Very quickly, we were seeing dozens, then hundreds and ultimately thousands of COVID-19 cases a day, along with many deaths,” he said. “The governor determined we needed to take steps to curtail economic activity and movements. There was no playbook for doing that at the time. We were developing these things in real time.”

Those steps, King and the plaintiffs argued, were an unconstitutional executive decision.

Much of Wednesday's hearing was spent by King and his team looking for weaknesses in Wolf's COVID-19 protocol. King probed Robinson about the “reopening team” and asked if there was an official list of members and who appointed people to the team.Robinson said the team wasn't a formal organization, but rather a collection of people from various parts of the government who came together to provide Wolf with information and policy suggestions.“What was important to me and the governor was responding to the pandemic, which required us to quickly create guidelines and be extremely transparent, so that the public understood specifics of the guidance — what was important to us was making sure the public was aware of the guidance,” he said.Under questioning from King, Robinson said Wolf never attended any of the team's “hundreds, if not thousands” of meetings, but he was constantly updated.“Every day, all we did from 6 a.m. to 10 or 11 at night is do meetings with each other, answer questions, work with various telecommunication tools,” Robinson said. “There's no formal meeting. It was constant, 18 hours a day of work to develop guidance and response.”Much of the questioning for Robinson addressed Wolf's stay-at-home orders in March. Since then, all 67 counties have reopened and are in the green phase.

King asked Robinson if there was a chance counties would be put back in the yellow or red phase if Wolf decided that was needed. Robinson said there were no plans at the moment.“Based on the course of the virus, certain restrictions could be put in place, but anything beyond that would be speculative and, obviously, the governor retains those authorities that have been upheld by courts,” Robinson said, referring to a recent state Supreme Court decision. “Anything is possible and the governor retains authority.”King also questioned the recent changes to the guidance under the green phase.Under the state's initial green-phase guidelines, gatherings of up to 250 people were permitted, including concerts, festivals, conferences, sporting events, movies and performances. Also, most businesses serving the public in a building or defined area could operate at up to 50 percent or 75 percent maximum capacity, depending on the type of business, while also enforcing social distancing requirements.On July 15, statewide mitigations were imposed reducing indoor capacity of restaurants to 25 percent, prohibiting businesses that serve only alcohol from operating, and limiting indoor gatherings to 25 people.“So, we're in green minus whatever the new order provides for,” King said, asking Robinson how the 25 percent capacity was decided upon.“Reviewed models of spread of COVID-19 that linked the spread of it through restaurants, so we curtailed restaurants and public access to it. We looked at other states that had gone so far as shutting them down,” Robinson said. “We chose a blended approach.”

King also asked what the future might hold.“There are a number of options for what post-green could look like, and that could be entire removal of all restrictions or replacement with other restrictions. There's certainly other options,” Robinson said.King wanted to know how long the current restrictions will be in place, but Robinson said there was no specific end date and they would monitor the data to see when new virus cases drop.“We want to prevent spikes that have been seen in other states that didn't take mitigation efforts,” Robinson said.King asked Robinson if the characterization of life-sustaining and non-life sustaining businesses were categories that could be found in the state's law.“Governor's authorities are all from the emergency statute that gives him broad authorization under a declared disaster. The use of the phrase 'life sustaining' was to give clarity to the public on why certain businesses stayed open,” Robinson said.

King asked Robinson about the reopening team's use of the North American Industry Classification System, a federal guidebook created in cooperation with Canada and Mexico that categorizes industries and various means of production.“This is not intended to be used to decide the winners and losers of life-sustaining classification,” King said.“The purpose of the book is to distinguish between businesses, and then we use that to decide what is life-sustaining or not. And it helped businesses who would know their code,” Robinson said.“Somebody picked up this book that was developed by Mexicans and Canadians, and made the decision that McDonald wasn't essential,” King said, referring to Lee McDonald, the owner of an appliance store in Center Township and a plaintiff in the case.Neil Weaver, executive deputy secretary for the state Department of Community and Economic Development, explained the waiver process to Tom Breth, King's colleague and fellow lawyer representing the plaintiffs.Previously, the plaintiffs, many of whom are small business owners, said they asked for a waiver to allow them to keep their businesses open during the shutdown. However, many complained they were prevented from staying open while other similar businesses were allowed to do so under the life-sustaining category.Weaver said there were a total of 42,000 waiver requests made between March and April 3, the date they decided to end the waiver process.Weaver said the decision was made to end the waiver program by the administration after the state was inundated with repeat waiver requests from businesses that had already been denied.“You went from a slowed process to no process,” Breth said. “If I changed my business model and made best Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for cleaning, I can't get a waiver because the process is closed.”Under questioning from Romano, who represented the state's defense, Weaver pointed out the life-sustaining guidelines were relaxed and now that all counties are in the green phase, no business has been forced to stay closed, except for nightclubs.During the hearing, the state's method of testing people was discussed by Sarah Boateng, executive deputy secretary of the state Department of Health. She clarified that people who contract the virus more than once aren't marked more than once. Each person tested has their own unique case identifier, preventing one person from being marked as more than one case.Arguments will now be made by both sides based on testimony from the past two weeks as the case moves forward.