Posted on 07/19/2013 10:55:30 AM PDT by NYer
Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. won a temporary reprieve on Friday from federal penalties as much as $1.3 million a day for failing to offer insurance coverage for emergency contraceptives to its more than 13,000 employees.
The company would have been forced to pay the fines for failing to comply with a mandate on emergency contraceptives is part of the Affordable Care Act. Hobby Lobby is suing the federal government over the law.
In brief remarks to reporters outside the courthouse after the hearing, Hobby Lobby President Steve Green said the Green family would have continued with its legal fight even Hobby Lobby had not successful in winning a preliminary injunction.
“This case is about life — our deeply held conviction is that life begins with conception,” Green said. “To offer prescriptions that take life is just not an option than us.”
Ruling from the bench Friday morning, U.S. District Court Judge Joe Heaton granted Hobby Lobby's request for a preliminary injunction against paying the fines while its court case continues.
The Oklahoma City-based retailer has been battling for a legal exemption to a federal mandate obligating the firm to provide its employees insurance coverage for emergency contraception. The company and its owners, CEO David Green and four family members, believe that some types of contraception, including the “morning-after pill,” are forms of abortion that conflict with the family's Christian beliefs.
Heaton earlier this year denied the company's motion for an injunction against potential penalties, but that ruling was overturned last month by a federal appeals court.
After landmark 10th Circuit opinion, district court grants preliminary injunction
For Immediate Release: July 19, 2013
Media Contact: Stephen Siao, ssiao@becketfund.org, 202.349.7226
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, a federal court granted Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. a preliminary injunction against the HHS abortion-drug mandate, preventing the government from enforcing the mandate against the Christian company. This victory comes less than a month after a landmark decision by the full 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled 5-3 that Hobby Lobby can exercise religion under the First Amendment and is likely to win its case against the mandate.
“The tide has turned against the HHS mandate,” said Kyle Duncan, General Counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, and lead attorney for Hobby Lobby.
In an opinion read from the bench, the court said, “There is a substantial public interest in ensuring that no individual or corporation has their legs cut out from under them while these difficult issues are resolved.”
This is a major victory for not only Hobby Lobby, but the religious liberty of all for-profit businesses.
There are now 63 separate lawsuits challenging the HHS mandate. The Becket Fund led the charge against the unconstitutional HHS mandate. The Becket Fund currently represents: Hobby Lobby, Wheaton College, East Texas Baptist University, Houston Baptist University, Colorado Christian University, the Eternal Word Television Network, Ave Maria University, and Belmont Abbey College.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a non-profit, public-interest law firm dedicated to protecting the free expression of all religious traditions—from Anglicans to Zoroastrians. For 18 years its attorneys have been recognized as experts in the field of church-state law. The Becket Fund recently won a 9-0 victory in Hosanna-Tabor v. EEOC, which The Wall Street Journal called one of “the most important religious liberty cases in a half century.”
For more information, or to arrange an interview with one of the attorneys, please contact Stephen Siao, Communications Assistant at ssiao@becketfund.org, 202.349.7226.
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Additional Information:
Gangster government.
The IRS to audit the CEO back to the “fetus”
3....2....1....
LOL! Don’t you mean “blob of cells”?
After the perverts on SCOTUS ruled against trad. marriage and Roberts was bought off and ruled for Obamascare, the odds are long that life will survive with the cloaked tyrants.
yeah..
There’s an injunction against “paying” the fines. Will they accumulate and be do later?
RE: Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. won a temporary reprieve on Friday from federal penalties
Why “temporary”. Temporary until when?
.......it’s “temporary” until the case is ultimately resolved, which could be years, or until further order of the court of jurisdiction or an appellate court....
BTTT
The answer is...Until they can find a way to effectively F* everyone through Color of Law, no matter how Unconstitutional
buy
Thanks for the HL linkage.
laws and courts are mere formalities these days.
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