Supremes: Hobby Lobby & Harris Win

Thanks SC. I googled. Piercing the corporate veil occurs when there is serious misconduct. If a corp. would decide to do something outside its scope using the SC decision that was narrowly defined then possible that their could be consequences. But what corp would when the SCOTUS has clearly and narrowly defined how it applies.

Legal Information Institute
PIERCING THE CORPORATE VEIL

DEFINITION

A situation in which courts put aside limited liability and hold a corporation's shareholders or directors personally liable for the corporation’s actions or debts. Veil piercing is most common in close corporations. While the law varies by state, generally courts have a strong presumption against piercing the corporate veil, and will only do so if there has been serious misconduct like abuse of the corporate form (e.g. intermingling of personal and corporate assets) or undercapatitalization at the time of incorporation.
www.law.cornell.edu/wex/piercing_the_corporate_veil

ScienceChic wrote:

Something the Dog Said wrote: <snip> My opinion is first that it is wrongly decided. The purpose of forming a corporation is to remove personal liability from the owners to protect their personal assets. If you are not going to be personal liable for the operation of the corporation, then you should not be imposing personal beliefs on the corporation itself. A few posters here forget that the 1st amendment not only protects the right of the individual of free exercise of religion, it also protects the individual from the imposition of the religion by others. Here the owners, while taking advantage of protecting themselves from personal liability by forming a corporation to hide behind, they are using that corporation to impose their religious beliefs on their employees. <snip>

This right here is an important observation, and the one that will have the biggest unintended consequence that can bring the reverse of this awful decision. The corporate veil has now been pierced by the Supreme Court of the United States of America. Anyone who feels wronged by a company can now sue the individual owners of that company, not just the corporation itself, for personal damages because the owners of that company can impose their own personal beliefs on others through that corporation.

This is little more than partisan hyperbole, from both of you. What the 1st Amendment protects is the right to worship in accordance with your own conscience, not the government's. The Constitution says nothing about a religious test as a condition of employment with a certain company, it says that no religious test may be imposed as a condition of holding elected office.

And yes, the owners of a company have long been able to impose their personal beliefs on their employees, there is nothing new here. Many owners required a certain style of dress because they believed their company would benefit from such a dress code. They allow an employee to be dismissed for acting, even on their own time, in a way that is harmful to the company image.

For well over a century the Supreme Court has held that corporations are nothing more, or less, than a collection of individuals who surrender none of their individual rights by pooling their assets into a corporation. Even the instances that Dog mentioned earlier are nothing more or less than a collection of individuals. Hobby Lobby did not start out as a large corporation with 572 stores. It started as a company that was started in one location with 300 sq ft of retail space. From day one the owners of that company have operated their store in accordance with their Christian beliefs. That is one of the reasons why they have grown from a single 300 sq ft location to operating 572 stores. The government does not have the power to prevent them from operating their private business along these lines - it cannot mandate that they violate their personal religious beliefs as a condition of conducting business in the Union. Anyone who thinks the federal government ought to have that power needs to stop and consider just what it is that they are arguing in favor of. Giving any government that much power over the populace is nothing other than an invitation to tyranny.

ScienceChic wrote: The next scary thing -
When Corporations Become Indistinguishable from Churches, Government Isn’t Far Behind
Posted by: Jim Wright
July 4, 2014

The problem with claiming that Hobby Lobby is attempting to force their religion upon their employees specifically by denying them any access to birth control is that you not only end up vilifying the company for the wrong reasons, but more importantly this kind of hyperbolic rage hides a much more disturbing implication.

More hyperbole. Hobby Lobby is denying access to birth control to anyone. There are 16 forms of contraception that are covered by the insurance offered by the company with no co-pay on the part of any employee. There is no penalty imposed on any employee for using any of the abortifacients mentioned in this ruling regardless of how many times the statists repeat the lie.

ScienceChic wrote: Unmentioned in the majority opinion, missing from Justice Ginsberg’s scathing dissent, lost among the Left’s towering outrage and the Right’s smug self-righteousness, it seems to have gone by unnoticed, that small ominous implication.

By essentially agreeing with the Green family that Plan-B, Ella, and IUDs are in point of fact abortifacients, despite the fact that they are not medically classified as such, the Supreme Court of the United States has done far more than rule on women’s health care, they’ve ruled to settle the philosophical question of when life begins.

When my life, or any individual human life, began is not a philosophical question that can be debated, it is a matter of simple science. I am today the same human life that began when the gametes of my parents joined and I started occupying my own individual space in the universe. From that moment in time to now I have been the same human life that had its beginnings at that moment in time.

Now, in time honored fashion, many wish to reserve to themselves the ability to decide who is and who is not human, to deny to others the rights to which their mere existence entitles them because they are not "human" enough to qualify for those rights, but there is simply no scientific, rational, or reasoned means by which anyone can sustain an argument that human life in the womb isn't alive or isn't human. My life didn't begin on some arbitrarily arrived at moment in time based on what a person believes or doesn't believe. My life began when I started occupying my own individual space within the universe and happened at the moment that the gametes of my parents joined. At that moment in time the individual cells of my parents ceased to exist and instead something entirely new existed in their place. That is a scientific fact, not a belief. My life didn't begin when I successfully attached myself to the womb of my mother, it didn't begin when I drew my first breath, or was first able to feel pain, or first had a detectable heartbeat of my own or brain activity of my own. Those are arbitrary points along the timeline of my development that man, not science, attaches significance to. From a strictly scientific point of view, with all the nonsense of personal beliefs removed from the discussion, by life began when I started occupying my own space within the universe and that point in time is simply not a debatable subject.

I personally wouldn't like my employer imposing their religious beliefs on me, so I'm not a fan of what Hobby Lobby wanted to do (not that I think this example was anything horrible). I'd be more understanding if the employer were a church, since imposing religious beliefs would much less surprising.

I also don't understand all the outrage some people are expressing over just four out of twenty FDA approved birth control methods were removed from Hobby Lobby's health insurance plan. They still offer plenty of "free" choices (I use the word "free" to mean no co-pay or deductible, though you and/or someone do have to pay for your insurance). And as mentioned before, despite what many politicians and some of the media are saying, Hobby Lobby is not at all opposed to birth control coverage and they do provide a lot of "free" coverage. It's amazing to me that this "free" coverage was not offered just a short time ago, but now it seems set in stone that unless you offer all twenty FDA approved birth control methods for "free" then you are a horrible employer and even somehow threatening constitutional rights.

Here are details about the twenty FDA approved methods of birth control:

www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ByAudience/ForW...ations/ucm313215.htm

I will agree that eliminating IUDs does take away a good long term (up to ten years or so) option
(short of permanent), though you can still pay for them yourself, or go work most anywhere else
where they would be covered.

One thing I'd like to discuss is something that most people may not be aware of. Even Obamacare
does not require all 20 FDA approved methods to be covered and "free". Two of the methods are not
required to be covered and "free" (though some insurance plans might choose include them if they
want). Can you guess what they are?

Here are the birth control methods which are required to be "free":

www.healthcare.gov/what-are-my-birth-control-benefits/

The two methods which are not required to be covered nor be "free" are "men's" birth control... specifically male condoms and vasectomies. Vasectomies are mentioned in the above link but condoms are not mentioned, though you can find many sites that confirm male condoms are not required to be "free" such as this one:

www.parenting.com/article/what-contracep...does-obamacare-cover

Interesting that the article states that even over-the-counter contraceptives are covered for women
(with a prescription), but not for men.

Female condoms and tubal ligation are "free", but the male equivalents are not required to be
"free". Why is that, and where is the outrage over the fact that Obamacare only requires eighteen
of the 20 methods to be covered and "free"? Is Obamacare practicing gender based discrimination?

It would make a lot of sense to cover male condoms because they are widely used and purchased by both men and women. Plus, out of the twenty FDA approved methods, only two are effective in preventing HIV/STDs, and male condoms are the most effective one available. Obamacare does require "free" vaccinations for many diseases and you'd think they'd at least cover male condoms for the STDs which do not currently have a vaccination.

By the way, there is talk about eventually covering condoms with Obamacare, but get this, the proposal is that male condoms would only be "free" for women and not for men. To me, that would make it even more discriminatory!

Why Aren’t Condoms Automatically Included in the List of Free Contraception?

According to the HHS, the women’s preventative services guidelines are meant for women exclusively.
Since condoms are considered a male-based contraceptive method, they are presently excluded from
this list.

However, this specific aspect has caused a lot of confusion since statistics show that women
actively buy and use condoms as contraception. According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, condoms are one of the top five methods of birth control used by women today. As the
administration clarifies its position, there is a possibility that women might be able to get free
condoms with a prescription in the near future.

www.personalhealthinsurance.com/does-hea...rance-cover-condoms/

Now, back to vasectomies. They are generally cheaper and have fewer health side effects than tubal
ligations, so it seems they too should be "free" if for no other reason that they could save healthcare dollars.

So far as if this is gender discrimination goes, I'm not an attorney and am not a legal expert.
But it seems like gender discrimination to me. The ACA actually has a nondiscrimination clause in
it; Section 1557. Here is a summary of it:

www.nwlc.org/resource/nondiscrimination-...are-act-section-1557

One of the features of Obamacare is that women no longer can be charged higher premiums than men,
even though their healthcare costs are usually higher. I think it's Section 1557 that helped bring
that about, though I could be mistaken. But if it is gender discrimination to charge higher healthcare premiums for women, then why is it not gender discrimination to allow insurance companies to create higher out-of-pocket expenses for men due unequal coverage? Is the ACA in violation of its own Section 1557?

The bottom line is that men are paying higher premiums than necessary to help cover "free" "women's" birth control but men do not receive a similar benefit (and I know the counter argument but no, V i a g r a is not birth control, coverage is not required by Obamacare, it is not covered by many insurance policies, if it is quantities are often limited, it is not "free" and is usually a more expensive higher tier drug, and it can be prescribed for women too).

I'd also like to discuss the potential legal issues as a result of the Hobby Lobby decision brought up by STDS and SC (again, not that I'm a legal expert).

Going through SC's article, this seems to be the main point the author is making:

In the court’s 5-4 majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito wrote,
“The owners of the businesses have religious objections to abortion, and according to their religious beliefs the four contraceptive methods at issue are abortifacients. If the owners comply with the [Obama administration’s contraception] mandate, they believe they will be facilitating abortions…”
And that, that right there, that quiet innocuous almost unnoticed legal assumption, that’s the real issue here.

By essentially agreeing with the Green family that Plan-B, Ella, and IUDs are in point of fact abortifacients, despite the fact that they are not medically classified as such, the Supreme Court of the United States has done far more than rule on women’s health care, they’ve ruled to settle the philosophical question of when life begins.

I just don't get that argument. I don't see anywhere that the Supreme Court agreed with the Green family about the four methods being abortifacients. In fact the word "abortifacients" only appears twice in the majority decision and in both cases they make it clear that it is the opinion of the owners of the business. Here is the decision (and no, I didn't read all 95 pages of it):

www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-354_olp1.pdf

One point that was not mentioned by the author in SC's link is that the majority decision also said this in a footnote:

The owners of the companies involved in these cases and others who believe that life begins at conception regard these four methods as causing abortions, but federal regulations, which define pregnancy as beginning at implantation, see, e.g., 62 Fed. Reg. 8611 (1997); 45 CFR §46.202(f) (2013), do not so classify them.

So using the same reasoning as the author of that article, I could instead conclude that the Supreme Court agrees with current federal regulations and based on the above statement I think I'd have a stronger argument. Of course you can make any argument you want and see if it can stick in the court system, so who knows what could happen?

So far as STDS' legal concern, I think STDS is worried the Hobby Lobby decision will break the corporate veil of personal liability if the owner(s) imposed personal beliefs on the corporation and/or employees (I'm assuming STDS means employees as well)?

If so, I think that already happens on a daily basis. Corporations control a lot of what employees do while at work 8-10 hours a day during the work week. And I think some of that is based on personal and even religious beliefs, IMO.

I see that Hobby Lobby, like Chick-fil-A, is closed on Sundays. Companies like those are usually open seven days a week. I think I'm safe in assuming the reason is due to the personal religious beliefs of the owners. Has this ever been challenged in court? I don't think anyone is being seriously harmed here, but I guess you could argue that the shorter operating hours are depriving people of jobs and making shopping less convenient. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this, I do not like owners imposing personal religious beliefs plus I do not support using religious beliefs (or other personal beliefs) to discriminate.

So far as health insurance goes, I think the owner's personal beliefs have always played a part here, and still does with Obamacare. I think a lot of business owners have a personal belief that their corporation should be as profitable as possible. But they do need to balance what's best for the business, sales, and what is best to attract good employees. Some owners might decide to offer cheaper health insurance policies with inferior benefits and higher deductibles and/or out-of-pocket expenses. Obamacare has made the benefits more consistent, but an owner can still choose to purchase a cheaper policy with the largest allowed deductible and a huge out-of-pocket expense up to $6350 if the owner wants to help profits (or in some cases, just to stay in business).

Democrats in the Senate are going to pass a bill that wouldn't let companies like Hobby Lobby do this to employees. Simply a token gesture since I can't imagine the Republican House passing the bill.

pineinthegrass wrote: I see that Hobby Lobby, like Chick-fil-A, is closed on Sundays. Companies like those are usually open seven days a week. I think I'm safe in assuming the reason is due to the personal religious beliefs of the owners. Has this ever been challenged in court? I don't think anyone is being seriously harmed here, but I guess you could argue that the shorter operating hours are depriving people of jobs and making shopping less convenient. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this, I do not like owners imposing personal religious beliefs plus I do not support using religious beliefs (or other personal beliefs) to discriminate.

Challenged in court? Are you suggesting others are being deprived by the fact that they can't get a 'chikin' sandwich and a pickle on Sunday? Are you suggesting that a business owner should not have the right to decide when and where his business is open? If you don't like a company's hours, or the days they are open, don't go. Don't support them. Spend your money somewhere else. The beauty of this country is that we don't (yet) have the government controlling every facet of our efforts to pursue liberty and freedom or forcing business to operate according to the standards and beliefs of others.

OmniScience wrote:

pineinthegrass wrote: I see that Hobby Lobby, like Chick-fil-A, is closed on Sundays. Companies like those are usually open seven days a week. I think I'm safe in assuming the reason is due to the personal religious beliefs of the owners. Has this ever been challenged in court? I don't think anyone is being seriously harmed here, but I guess you could argue that the shorter operating hours are depriving people of jobs and making shopping less convenient. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this, I do not like owners imposing personal religious beliefs plus I do not support using religious beliefs (or other personal beliefs) to discriminate.

Challenged in court? Are you suggesting others are being deprived by the fact that they can't get a 'chikin' sandwich and a pickle on Sunday? Are you suggesting that a business owner should not have the right to decide when and where his business is open? If you don't like a company's hours, or the days they are open, don't go. Don't support them. Spend your money somewhere else. The beauty of this country is that we don't (yet) have the government controlling every facet of our efforts to pursue liberty and freedom or forcing business to operate according to the standards and beliefs of others.

I think you missed the main point I was trying to make, though I see I could of been clearer.

My main point was that Hobby Lobby (and Chick-fil-A) have already made business decisions based on personal religious belief by being closed on Sunday so I didn't get the point of STDS' post about this recent Supreme Court decision breaking a corporate veil of liability. They've made personal religious based decisions in the past (like not being open on Sunday) which did not create a problem with the corporate veil.

If they want to be closed on Sunday that's fine with me since it doesn't really affect me. I was just trying to think how someone else might think they've been "damaged" and possibly challenge it in court if they were so inclined. If those companies had separately owned franchises, I could see that maybe a franchise owner could be "damaged" by not being allowed to be open on Sundays and losing that business. But so far as I can see, all of the stores are privately owned by the main company. So if they don't mind losing the Sunday business, that's fine by me.

There is a lot of recent outrage about Hobby Lobby not providing insurance coverage for four out of twenty methods of birth control based on religious belief. I was simply thinking out loud if there is some reason someone might of had a problem with them being closed on Sunday and possibly challenged it. No big deal, the main point was that they've made decisions in the past based on religious/personal belief and the corporate veil of liability was not damaged.

And who decided which forms of birth control and abortion were covered under ACA? A partisan House of Representatives that lost their jobs once people found out what was in the bill.

I am Pro-Choice and I do not have religious beliefs or believe or give credit to religious
propaganda.

I do not believe Plan B or Abortion should be used as a single form of birth control but if an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy occurs I believe a woman should, without a doubt do it ASAP.
I fully support a woman choice to do with her body as she sees fit...period.

ThePetParent wrote: I am Pro-Choice and I do not have religious beliefs or believe or give credit to religious
propaganda.

I do not believe Plan B or Abortion should be used as a single form of birth control but if an unplanned, unwanted pregnancy occurs I believe a woman should, without a doubt do it ASAP.
I fully support a woman choice to do with her body as she sees fit...period.

I can agree with this but I should also not be expected to pay for it either.