Month: April 2016

On March 23, 2016, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Zubik v. Burwell, the lead case in a consolidated series, with the other petitioners including Priests for Life, Southern Nazarene University, Geneva College, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, East Texas Baptist University, and Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged. -- The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) requires that group health plans and health insurance issuers provide coverage for women’s “preventative care,” or face financial penalties. Although the ACA does not define preventative care, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), relying on the Institute of Medicine, determined that the term encompassed, among other things, all FDA-approved contraceptive methods, including drugs and devices that could induce an abortion. Although the government exempted “religious employers” from this mandate, the exemption was narrowly defined and did not extend to petitioners. The government did, however, offer non-profit entities such as petitioners an “accommodation.” -- Under the accommodation, which was modified in the course of litigation, an objecting religious nonprofit entity complies if it provides the government with a notice that includes “the name of the eligible organization,” its “plan name and type,” and the name and contact information for any of the plan’s third-party administrators (TPAs) and health insurance issuers. Upon receiving the notice, the government notifies the objecting entity’s insurance company or TPA, which then must provide payments for the requisite contraceptive products and services. A number of objecting non-profits sought relief in various federal courts, arguing that the accommodation violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) of 1993. The resulting litigation produced a series of fractured opinions and a split in the Courts of Appeals, with non-profit religious organizations prevailing in the Eighth Circuit but losing in a number of others. -- After imposing a brief injunction on enforcement against petitioners while it considered various petitions for certiorari, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a number of petitions and consolidated the cases for oral argument on the following question: whether the HHS Mandate and its “accommodation” violate RFRA by forcing religious nonprofits to act in violation of their sincerely held religious beliefs, when the Government has not proven that this compulsion is the least restrictive means of advancing any compelling interest. On March 29, the Court also issued a detailed order requiring the parties to brief “whether and how contraceptive coverage may be obtained by petitioners'’ employees through petitioners’ insurance companies, but in a way that does not require any involvement of petitioners beyond their own decision to provide health insurance without contraceptive coverage to their employees.” -- To discuss the case, we have Roger Severino, who is Director, DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, The Heritage Foundation.

On March 21, 2016, the Supreme Court decided Caetano v. Massachusetts without oral argument. -- Jamie Caetano was convicted of violating a Massachusetts law prohibiting possession of stun guns. On appeal, she claimed this law violated the Second Amendment, by infringing her right to possess a stun gun in public for the purpose of self-defense from an abusive ex-boyfriend. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts affirmed Caetano’s conviction, ruling that stun guns are not eligible for Second Amendment protection. -- By a vote of 8-0, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion vacating the judgment of the Massachusetts court and remanding the case. Citing its 2008 precedent District of Columbia v. Heller, and its 2010 precedent McDonald v. Chicago, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the Massachusetts court’s decision as contradictory of Supreme Court precedent. Justice Alito filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Thomas joined. -- To discuss the case, we have Nelson Lund, who is University Professor at George Mason University School of Law.

On March 21, 2016, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. The European Community. The European Community and 26 of its member states sued RJR Nabisco (RJR) in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, alleging that RJR conducted a global money-laundering enterprise in violation of several laws, including the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a federal statute. The alleged RICO enterprise involved the importation of illegal drugs into European countries by Colombian and Russian criminal organizations, with RJR helping to launder their drug money through a cigarette import-purchase scheme. Applying a presumption against extraterritorial application of federal law, the district court dismissed The European Community’s civil RICO claim. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit vacated that judgment and reinstated the RICO claim, however, concluding that various alleged predicates for RICO liability had been intended by Congress to apply extraterritorially and that other offenses asserted sufficiently important domestic activity to come within RICO’s coverage. -- The U.S. Supreme Court granted RJR’s subsequent petition for writ of certiorari on the following question: whether, or to what extent, RICO applies extraterritorially. -- To discuss the case, we have Richard A. Samp, who is Chief Counsel at Washington Legal Foundation.

On March 29, 2016, the Supreme Court decided Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. A group of public school employees sued the California Teachers Association and various other entities, arguing that the agency shop arrangement itself--as well as the opt-out requirement--violated the First Amendment. The district court denied their claim and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed based on existing precedent and the 1997 Supreme Court decision Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. The two questions before the Supreme Court were (1) whether the Abood precedent should be overruled and public-sector “agency shop” arrangements invalidated under the First Amendment; and (2) whether it violates the First Amendment to require that public employees affirmatively object to subsidizing nonchargeable speech by public-sector unions, rather than requiring that employees affirmatively consent to subsidizing such speech. -- In a one-sentence per curiam opinion, the judgment of the Ninth Circuit was affirmed by an equally divided Supreme Court, a 4-4 split. -- To discuss the case, we have Richard A. Epstein, the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Laurence A. Tisch Professor of Law, New York University School of Law and Professor Emeritus and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.