Posted on 06/23/2014 5:11:27 AM PDT by xzins
The Supreme Court decision in the monumental Hobby Lobby case against the abortion mandate in Obamacare is expected either this week or next.
The Obama administration is attempting to make Hobby Lobby and thousands of pro-life businesses and organizations comply with the HHS mandate that compels religious companies to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs for their employees. However, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take up Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., a landmark case addressing the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of business owners to operate their family companies without violating their deeply held religious convictions.
Kristina Arriaga, Executive Director of the Becket Fund, the legal group heading up the lawsuit against the mandate for Hobby Lobby, talked about what to expect.
hobbylobby3“We are expecting the Hobby Lobby decision any day now,” she said in an email to LifeNews. “In fact, we have been holding our collective breath for the last several weeks as the Supreme Court issues its Monday opinions.”
“As of today, according to several longtime observers of the Court, the expectation is that additional days will be added to the opinion calendar. We suspect that Monday, June 23, will be followed by several other days of announcements; and then, we will hear later that same week. Until then, we wait,” she added.
Arriaga says the decision is a long time coming.
“I think it is inherently unjust that the government has forced the Green family, the devout owners of Hobby Lobby, to face a two-year battle in court,” she explained. “As you know, the Greens grew their family business out of their garage. They now own stores in 41 states employing more than 16,000 full time employees. They have always operated their business according to their faith. In fact, the Greens pay salaries that start at twice the minimum wage and offer excellent benefits, as well as a healthcare package which includes almost all of the contraceptives now mandated by the Affordable Care Act. Their only objection is to 4 drugs and devices which, the government itself concedes, can terminate an embryo.”
“Their rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act should be protected by the government. Instead, the government has threatened them with fines and fought them all the way to the Supreme Court,” Arriaga added.
“The government has already exempted tens of millions of Americans from complying with the mandate that forces employers to provide certain specific drugs and devices. However, it refuses to accommodate the Green family because the Green family’s objections are religious. We believe that the government’s position is not only extreme and unconstitutional; it presents a grave danger to our freedoms,” she continued.
The Obama administration says it is confident it will prevail, saying, “We believe this requirement is lawful…and are confident the Supreme Court will agree.”
“My family and I are encouraged that the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide our case,” said Mr. Green, Hobby Lobby’s founder and CEO. “This legal challenge has always remained about one thing and one thing only: the right of our family businesses to live out our sincere and deeply held religious convictions as guaranteed by the law and the Constitution. Business owners should not have to choose between violating their faith and violating the law.”
The Supreme Court is also taking the case of the Mennonite cabinet makers forced to pay for birth control and abortion-causing drugs.
In July, a federal court granted Hobby Lobby a preliminary injunction against the HHS abortion-drug mandate. The injunction prevented the Obama administration from enforcing the mandate against the Christian company, but the Obama administration appealed that ruling recently. The government’s appeal makes it highly likely that the Supreme Court will decide the issue in the upcoming term.
After the appeals court ruling, U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton issued a preliminary injunction and stayed the case until Oct. 1 to give the Obama administration time to appeal the decision.
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.”
Duncan says 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.
Hobby Lobby could have paid as much as $1.3 million each day in fines for refusing to pay for birth control or abortion-causing drugs under the mandate.
A December 2013 Rasmussen Reports poll shows Americans disagree with forcing companies like Hobby Lobby to obey the mandate.
“Half of voters now oppose a government requirement that employers provide health insurance with free contraceptives for their female employees,” Rasmussen reports.
The poll found: “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 38% of Likely U.S. Voters still believe businesses should be required by law to provide health insurance that covers all government-approved contraceptives for women without co-payments or other charges to the patient.
Fifty-one percent (51%) disagree and say employers should not be required to provide health insurance with this type of coverage. Eleven percent (11%) are not sure.”
Another recent poll found 59 percent of Americans disagree with the mandate.
I don't see how that argues against a corporation enjoying 1st amendment protections. The focus is on the incredible amount of things which a corporation CAN do just as individuals can. I see no reason why I should lose any basic right when I act collectively that I enjoy when I act individually.
That is a far cry from "surrendering your rights to the government."
It's not only a far cry, it's entirely irrelevent.
You're merely discussing one of the mechanisms of indemnification (and there are hundreds, if not thousands - enough to keep entire legal industries wealthy).
What I am talking about is the price of entry.
You want to play the corporation game, you surrender your rights and exchange them for privileges. That is the flat-out, inescapable, rock-solid, unchanging truth. Corporations have no rights. "Corporate rights" are NOT the same as the Constitutional acknowledgement of pre-existing human natural rights. Rather, corporate "rights" are in fact "privilege grants" from the government that may be changed or rescinded at any time by the government.
And THAT is exactly "surrendering your rights to the government."
So what options should one take to form a business that avoids all this convolution while still possibly protecting oneself from personal liability for purely business decisions?
That's a different question - but the crux of the matter.
In fact, businesses need a way of legitimately reducing personal liability - within proper limits. Current corporate law is what has been offered for this purpose, by people who didn't give a damn about business protection. All they cared about is finding a mechanism whereby people would voluntarily surrender their rights. They found one.
And now we have the country we have.
It's a bad situation. Because now the courts have ruled that the government can presume incorporation and hold people to corporate laws, and they have to prove they don't apply - but these same courts don't acknowledge any method to do so. And so you see millions of people screaming about their rights, and the courts uniformly ruling that they have none. it happens every day, and no one asks why or how. They just assume "criminality." But it's not criminal - it's got a method. A reliable method attorneys count on in order to do their work.
Yes, the system can be reigned in. In fact, it is extremely easy to reign it in, and no change in corporate law needs take place. The only thing that has to happen is that the government must be banned from presuming corporate status. In every case, it must be forced to prove corporate status, before it can apply corporate law.
In a single stroke, MOST of the laws of this country would be blocked - and EVERY Leftist law.
But that would take people waking up and learning what the problem is, and how it works.
Hehe. Good luck.
5-4 for Hobby Lobby
Is assuming personal liability your only "good" option to overreaching government interference?
How about going back to contractual law that might allow a business to claim protection from personal liability unless recklessness or negligence?
When corporations were first formed in the US, shareholders actually were personally liable for the company. This was a big deal, people were very wary of this whole indemnification thing. They rightly saw it as a way for criminals to escape justice. So back then, say you had a dollar in stock in JP Morgan, and the company was convicted of a crime or sued and lost - you would be personally liable, to the limits of your one dollar share.
Of course, corporate owners, operators and lawyers then ran for Congress, got in and changed the laws to be more and more and more protective, until we ended up... here... wherever we are.
Ironically, personal liability is currently in many ways technically safer than incorporating, because all of the courts are now corporate administrative courts. They can still sit in common law if they so choose, but they - never - so choose. Again, back in the 1800’s common law courts and administrative courts were two completely different animals (as, in fact, they actually are - their jurisdictional powers and presumptions are 180 degrees opposite one another). So today if you are not a corporation, and run a business, and someone sues you, you can simply point out that you are not a corporate entity, and therefore the laws they are invoking to sue you dont apply to you.
Problem is, on the State level, there’s no fixed method to do this like on the federal level. And on any level, the actual definitions of these terms are written in Sanskrit, scrambled in PGP, printed out on toilet paper and thrown into the ocean. So you can spend a lot of money trying to prove you are not a corporation, and the government never has to prove you are one - even if you have no incorporation papers. It’s that crazy.
Yet, ultimately, it’s also that simple. The Big Lie is always simple. It’s just... BIG.
I can’t say I know what to do about it. For me it’s like one of those two faces vs. wine glass visual puzzles - once you see the wine glass, you always see the wine glass. Well, it’s the same with this subject. They always use corporate terms very carefully, and peculiar parts of legal construction, etc. It’s just “the way it’s done.”
As for contract law liability limitations to recklessness and negligence, yeah, they apply. It’s just that the whole fabric of the court system is caught up in corporate applications of these issues, and once you step into a court without carefully declaring “special appearance,” the court “presumes” you’ve admitted you are a corporation. And then game over.
They might be evil, but they’re not stupid. Many generations of legal minds went into creating this web, motivated by a lot of power and a lot of money. If you look at is from a purely structural point of view, it’s actually quite brilliant. Too bad it’s being used so inappropriately.
However, I always go back to "natural law" and if nothing else, common law, to see what it "should" be. To me for now what it "should" be looks like some kind of contractual agreement where managing shareholders should be liable but not non-managing shareholders, and nuke all this corporate law crap.
I had a law teacher who didnt want to just come out an explain the difference between corporate and common law jurisidiction. So in response to various assignments, I would wax eloquent about various defense and justification arguments, oblivious.
All I ever got back was "see me."
Drove me mad. I would parse out every little detail, justify every claim and part of my argument, nail it to the wall.
All I ever got back was "doesn't matter."
Difficult time.
That was the original difference between preferred and common stock, respectively.
Now, not so much. LOL
I gotta tell you. If we nuked all the commercial and Constitutional-related laws passed since around 1900, I think we’d be so much better off.
And here I am working on passing the bar. Maybe I can do some good somewhere, I hope.
Knowledge is power. Take in information, test it, keep what sticks, and ask questions. If you're going into law, remember the bottom line is... the bottom line - Mr. Green. The hardest, most intricate legal questions can be deciphered by applying the master legal key: "Cui bono?"
Oh, and learn the rules of construction until you mutter them in your sleep. Absolutely nothing will help you as much as being able to decipher legal construction. In fact, you can make a career out of doing nothing but that.
You mean like what I'm studying now, the maxims of construing contracts that are ambiguous or missing terms?
Yep, and definitions based on jurisdiction, especially jurisdiction generated by the use of terms of art that are restricted to a certain usage.
Never, ever believe a term is missing or ambiguous. It’s ALWAYS there - somewhere. The moment you discover something missing or ambiguous, then as Sherlock Holmes would say, “the game’s afoot!”
For example, if you aren’t careful about the meaning of “common” terms, those are exactly the terms that will trip you up. A nasty contract won’t call attention to itself. It won’t say that you are agreeing to be subject to the “photon confabulator.” No - it will say you are agreeing to be subject to “release from all obligation.”
Then on page 23, it will talk about “proprietary meanings” of supplemental terms.
Then on page 14, it will talk about the “groupings” of supplemental terms.
Then on page 29 it will define term groupings as “including release as acceptance of disconnection from indemnification.”
LOL
Thanks. Think I’ll pass. Maybe I’ll shoot for simple wills and trusts. Something where my wife and I can be free to pursue other things as well.
You mean designing safes? Or cracking them?
LOL, don't mind me. Best of luck.
Sounds like designing and cracking safes would be easier than designing and cracking CCC's (convoluted corporate contracts).
:-)
Without doubt! : )
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