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Burwell v. Hobby Lobby

Ratings: (6)|Views: 1,708,199 |Likes: 11

Published by HuffPost Politics

Supreme Court decision on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby

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Categories:Business/Law, Court Filings

Published by: HuffPost Politics on Jun 30, 2014

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(Slip Opinion)

OCTOBER TERM, 2013 Syllabus

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as isbeing done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has beenprepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See

United States

Detroit Timber & Lumber Co.,

200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

BURWELL, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES,

ET AL

. HOBBY LOBBY STORES, INC.,

ET AL

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT No. 13–354. Argued March 25, 2014—Decided June 30, 2014* The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) prohibits the “Government [from] substantially burden[ing] a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicabil-ity” unless the Government “demonstrates that application of theburden to the person—(1) is in furtherance of a compelling govern-mental interest; and (2) is the least restrictive means of furtheringthat compelling governmental interest.” 42 U. S. C. §§2000bb–1(a), (b). As amended by the Religious Land Use and InstitutionalizedPersons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA), RFRA covers “any exercise of religion, whether or not compelled by, or central to, a system of religious be-lief.” §2000cc–5(7)(A). At issue here are regulations promulgated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), which, as relevant here, requires specified employers’ group health plans to furnish “preventive care and screenings” for women without “any cost sharing requirements,”42 U. S. C. §300gg–13(a)(4). Congress did not specify what types of preventive care must be covered; it authorized the Health Resources and Services Administration, a component of HHS, to decide.

Ibid

. Nonexempt employers are generally required to provide coverage for the 20 contraceptive methods approved by the Food and Drug Admin- —————— *Together with No. 13–356,

Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. et al.

Burwell, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al.,

on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

2 BURWELL

HOBBY LOBBY STORES, INC. Syllabus istration, including the 4 that may have the effect of preventing an already fertilized egg from developing any further by inhibiting itsattachment to the uterus. Religious employers, such as churches, are exempt from this contraceptive mandate. HHS has also effectively exempted religious nonprofit organizations with religious objectionsto providing coverage for contraceptive services. Under this accom-modation, the insurance issuer must exclude contraceptive coveragefrom the employer’s plan and provide plan participants with separate payments for contraceptive services without imposing any cost-sharing requirements on the employer, its insurance plan, or its em-ployee beneficiaries.In these cases, the owners of three closely held for-profit corpora-tions have sincere Christian beliefs that life begins at conception andthat it would violate their religion to facilitate access to contraceptive drugs or devices that operate after that point. In separate actions,they sued HHS and other federal officials and agencies (collectively HHS) under RFRA and the Free Exercise Clause, seeking to enjoin application of the contraceptive mandate insofar as it requires them to provide health coverage for the four objectionable contraceptives.In No. 13–356, the District Court denied the Hahns and their compa-ny—Conestoga Wood Specialties—a preliminary injunction. Affirm-ing, the Third Circuit held that a for-profit corporation could not “en-gage in religious exercise” under RFRA or the First Amendment, andthat the mandate imposed no requirements on the Hahns in theirpersonal capacity. In No. 13–354, the Greens, their children, and their companies—Hobby Lobby Stores and Mardel—were also denieda preliminary injunction, but the Tenth Circuit reversed. It held that the Greens’ businesses are “persons” under RFRA, and that the cor-porations had established a likelihood of success on their RFRA claim because the contraceptive mandate substantially burdened their ex-ercise of religion and HHS had not demonstrated a compelling inter-est in enforcing the mandate against them; in the alternative, the court held that HHS had not proved that the mandate was the “least restrictive means” of furthering a compelling governmental interest.

Held

: As applied to closely held corporations, the HHS regulations im-posing the contraceptive mandate violate RFRA. Pp. 16–49.(a) RFRA applies to regulations that govern the activities of closelyheld for-profit corporations like Conestoga, Hobby Lobby, and Mar-del. Pp. 16–31. (1) HHS argues that the companies cannot sue because they are for-profit corporations, and that the owners cannot sue because the regulations apply only to the companies, but that would leave mer-chants with a difficult choice: give up the right to seek judicial protec-tion of their religious liberty or forgo the benefits of operating as cor-

3 Cite as: 573 U. S. ____ (2014) Syllabus porations. RFRA’s text shows that Congress designed the statute toprovide very broad protection for religious liberty and did not intend to put merchants to such a choice. It employed the familiar legal fic-tion of including corporations within RFRA’s definition of “persons,”but the purpose of extending rights to corporations is to protect the rights of people associated with the corporation, including sharehold-ers, officers, and employees. Protecting the free-exercise rights of closely held corporations thus protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control them. Pp. 16–19.(2) HHS and the dissent make several unpersuasive arguments.Pp. 19–31. (i) Nothing in RFRA suggests a congressional intent to departfrom the Dictionary Act definition of “person,” which “include[s] cor-porations, . . . as well as individuals.” 1 U. S. C. §1. The Court has entertained RFRA and free-exercise claims brought by nonprofit cor-porations. See,

e.g., Gonzales

O Centro Espírita Beneficiente União do Vegetal

, 546 U. S. 418. And HHS’s concession that a nonprofit corporation can be a “person” under RFRA effectively dispatches any argument that the term does not reach for-profit corporations; noconceivable definition of “person” includes natural persons and non-profit corporations, but not for-profit corporations. Pp. 19–20. (ii) HHS and the dissent nonetheless argue that RFRA does not cover Conestoga, Hobby Lobby, and Mardel because they cannot“exercise . . . religion.” They offer no persuasive explanation for this conclusion. The corporate form alone cannot explain it because RFRA indisputably protects nonprofit corporations. And the profit-making objective of the corporations cannot explain it because the Court has entertained the free-exercise claims of individuals who were attempting to make a profit as retail merchants.

Braunfeld

Brown

, 366 U. S. 599. Business practices compelled or limited by thetenets of a religious doctrine fall comfortably within the understand-ing of the “exercise of religion” that this Court set out in

Employment Div., Dept. of Human Resources of Ore.

Smith

, 494 U. S. 872, 877. Any suggestion that for-profit corporations are incapable of exercis-ing religion because their purpose is simply to make money flies in the face of modern corporate law. States, including those in whichthe plaintiff corporations were incorporated, authorize corporations to pursue any lawful purpose or business, including the pursuit of profit in conformity with the owners’ religious principles. Pp. 20–25.(iii) Also flawed is the claim that RFRA offers no protection be-cause it only codified pre-

Smith

Free Exercise Clause precedents, none of which squarely recognized free-exercise rights for for-profitcorporations. First, nothing in RFRA as originally enacted suggestedthat its definition of “exercise of religion” was meant to be tied to pre-