• Background
• Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius
– Mr. Duncan began career
– Beginning of cases where
helping individuals and
businesses built on religion sued
organizations protect their
under RFA and Free Exercise to
religious freedoms by
get out of mandate
teaching con law at U Miss.
– During course of lawsuit, wanted
Law.
to make sure that Hobby Lobby
– Served as solicitor general and
was not a case about women’s
appellate chief of the LA
rights or whether businesses
department of Justice
should or should not offer
contraceptive coverage.
– Met with Becket Fund
individuals and joined
– Case about whether everyone
organization as general
can practice their religion freely
counsel
Interview Cont.
• How did the media play a
role?
– Most important thing is to
make sure the media knows
your point of view, not
necessarily that they agree
with it
– Happy with how media
represented case as
question of religious liberty,
not whether gov’t has a role
in providing contraceptive
coverage
• How did your beliefs play a
role?
– He believes everyone should
be able to practice religion
freely, but beliefs not crucial
to this case
“Congress shall make no law respecting the
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof.”
The First Amendment is applicable to the states
through the 14th Amendment.
Hobby Lobby argued that the plaintiffs’ sincerely held
religious beliefs prohibits them from providing
coverage or access to coverage for abortion-causing
drugs or devices or related education and counseling.
The mandate violates the religious freedoms of Green
and his Family who oppose abortion and abortioninducing drugs, including certain contraceptives.
Rational Basis Scrutiny: If a law is both neutral and
generally applicable, it only has to be rationally related
to a legitimate governmental interest to survive a
constitutional challenge.
Neutral: A law is neutral if its object is something other
than the infringement or restriction of religious
practices.
Hobby Lobby: The Mandate exempts some religious
employers from compliance while compelling others to
provide coverage for preventive services.
The Court: the Mandate is neutral.
To hold that any religious exemption makes a statute not
neutral would be to discourage the enactment of any
such exemptions- and thus to restrict, rather than
promote, freedom of religion.
Laws burdening religious practice must be of
general applicability.
Hobby Lobby: the Mandate is not generally applicable
because of the numerous exemptions, including those for
grandfathered plans and religious employers.
The Court: the Mandate does not pursue governmental
interests only against conduct motivated by religious
belief.
The Law is generally applicable.
The Mandate is neutral and of general
applicability, so it is subject only to
rational basis scrutiny.
The Preventive Care Mandate and the
Defendants’ threatened enforcement of the
Mandate violate the plaintiffs’ rights secured to
them by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act
of 1993
in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest
and is the least restrictive means of furthering that
compelling governmental interest.
The critical question was whether the mandate
imposed a “substantial” burden on the Greens
for purposes of the RFRA.
Following convictions
v.
Paying enormous fines
Direct Effect
Court: plaintiffs complain of the particular burden 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 Hobby
Lobby’ plan, subsidize someone else’s participation in an
activity that is condemned by plaintiff’s religion.
• Holdings: Corporations have standing to assert both the free exercise rights
and the RFRA claims of their owners when the religious beliefs of the owners
and of the corporations are indistinguishable
• RFRA Findings:
– Because the ACA’s contraceptive coverage mandate places direct
substantial pressure on the plaintiffs, the plaintiffs’ religious exercise have
been violated
– the government, while having compelling interests in promoting public
health and ensuring equal access to health care, has either
• 1) failed to show that the ACA contraceptive mandate will further the
government’s interests
• or 2) failed to prove that the contraceptive mandate is the least
restrictive means of achieving the government’s interest.
• The Government’s health care interests were outweighed by the plaintiffs’,
and public’s, interest in the rights afforded by the RFRA.
• Following the district court’s decision in Hobby
Lobby, the Plaintiffs appealed and filed a motion
for injunction pending resolution of appeal in the
Tenth Circuit
– Tenth Circuit denied the Plaintiffs’ motion for
injunction
• Plaintiffs applied to Supreme Court’s Circuit
Justice for an injunction pending appellate review
– On December 26 2012, the Circuit Justice for the
Tenth Circuit, Justice Sotomayer, denied the
application for an injunction pending appellate review