Seventh Circuit Blocks HHS Mandate for Private Business (Disses 10th Circuit "Hobby Lobby" Decision)

NROnline/ The Corner ^ | December 29, 2012 | David French

[Mrs. Don-o]

Late yesterday afternoon, the Seventh Circuit granted an emergency injunction against the HHS mandate — preventing its enforcement against an Illinois business and its owners. My colleagues at the ACLJ represent Korte & Luitjohan Contractors, Inc., a family-owned, full-service construction contractor. The company is located in Highland, Ill., and employs about 90 workers.

The brief opinion is worth a read in its entirety, but two parts stand out. First, the court disagreed with the Tenth Circuit’s recent decision rejecting Hobby Lobby’s request for a similar injunction. In a key paragraph the court stated:

The government also argues that any burden on religious exercise is minimal and attenuated, relying on a recent decision by the Tenth Circuit in Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius, No. 12‐6294 (10th Cir. Dec. 20, 2012). Hobby Lobby, like this case, involves a claim for injunctive and declaratory relief against the mandate brought by a secular, for‐profit employer. On an interlocutory appeal from the district court’s denial of a preliminary injunction, the Tenth Circuit denied an injunction pending appeal, noting that “the particular burden of which plaintiffs complain is that funds, which plaintiffs will contribute to a group health plan, might, after a series of independent decisions by health care providers and patients covered by [the corporate] plan, subsidize someone else’s participation in an activity condemned by plaintiff[s’] religion.” Id. at 7 (quoting Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius, 870 F. Supp. 2d 1278, 1294 (W.D. Okla. 2012)). With respect, we think this misunderstands the substance of the claim. The religious‐liberty violation at issue here inheres in the coerced coverage of contraception, abortifacients, sterilization, and related services, not—or perhaps more precisely, not only—in the later purchase or use of contraception or related services. This is exactly right. The mandated coverage exists — regardless of the actions or activities of the individual employees — and it is the mandate that violates the religious liberty of the employer.

Second, the court distinguished Justice Sotomayor’s recent decision not to grant Hobby Lobby emergency relief, rightly noting that Justice Sotomayor applied a much different standard:

But the “demanding standard” for issuance of an extraordinary writ by the Supreme Court . . . differs significantly from the standard applicable to a motion for a stay or injunction pending appeal in this court. As Justice Sotomayor noted, the entitlement to relief must be “‘indisputably clear.’”

As we begin the new year, we at the ACLJ are exceedingly thankful that each of our for-profit clients has now obtained an injunction against the mandate. Their most fundamental rights to religious liberty enjoy the protection of federal court, at least for now. There is much work left to be done, and a Supreme Court battle looms in 2013.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Mrs. Don-o. A temporary reprieve? Stay of execution? A lulling into a false sense of semi-security?

[Nifster]

The opinion that man is fallen and sinful is biblical. God grants me free will NOT any government.

[OneWingedShark]

Actually, the right-to-privacy argument underlying Roe can easily be turned around and used against the government in the HHS mandate.

No, It cannot.
You are making the mistake that the laws must be consistent as much as possible; the court cannot abide such a principle because to do so would dethrone them from their position as [legal] priests, handing down "god's word" [law] from their bench according to their arbitrary decision [opinion, non-legal] on whatever matter.

This is the whole point of 'precedence'; it is not, as they assert, to keep the same questions from arising in the legal arena, but is instead nothing more than the Judiciary playing the children's game "Telephone" with your rights.

The "right to privacy" is a perfect example: the right to privacy actually does exist in some form under the 4th Amendment {your belongings are not to be inspected by officials without cause}, but this explicitly guarenteed privacy is routinely violated every day and on such a scale that it is mind-boggling. The TSA alone would be enough to make a lie of the 4th Amendment, but we have "no knock" raids and property/asset forfeiture and Codes Enforcement, too.